BPO chief to face action for violating night shift norms
SOURCE: Times of India
DATE: January 30th, 2008
Som Mittal is also currently the NASSCOM president
ARTICLE
The head of a reputed Bangalore-based BPO, which saw one of its women employees raped and killed by the driver of the pick-up car in December 2005, would face prosecution for violating a Karnataka government order banning employment of women and young persons in night shift. The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the plea of Som Mittal, managing director of Hewlett Packard Global Soft Ltd, seeking quashing of the FIR lodged against him by the police accusing his company of violating the 2002 order of the state government prohibiting night shift for women.
After the unfortunate incident involving rape and murder of Pratibha Srikant Murthy on December 13, 2005, the police had filed an FIR accusing the BPO chief of violating statutory orders. Mittal’s plea for quashing of FIR was rejected by the Karnataka High Court. The ban order was with a caveat that if the company decides to put women in night shift, they should provide transport facility to office and back home and also security during the travel. It was alleged that though the BPO provided the transport facility, it had not made provision for a security staff in the vehicle. A Bench comprising Justices H K Sema and Markandey Katju directed the trial court to decide the case uninfluenced by the observations made by it and the high court as expeditiously as possible. It said the trial court would decide the maintainability of the complaint against Mittal at the time of consideration of the charge after hearing parties. Justice Sema rejected the argument of Mittal’s counsel that the high court, despite having the power under Section 482 of the CrPC to review the maintainability of a criminal case, had refused to exercise it. Justice Sema said that SC had deprecated the interference by the HCs in exercise of its powers under section 482 in a routine manner and held that it should be exercised sparingly. Though Justice Katju agreed with the continuance of the case against Mittal, he differed with Justice Sema’s perception that the HCs should exercise the power in rarest of rare cases. While Nasscom officials refused to comment on the issue, Hewlett Packard Global Soft Ltd chief could not be reached.
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