Domestic helps left out of sexual harassment Bill

Is poor crime investigation and possibility of abuse of legislation is the reason?

The government has excluded domestic helps — among the sections most vulnerable to sexual harassment — from the purview of the Bill that the Union Cabinet cleared here on Thursday for protection of women against sexual harassment at workplace.
The Bill, which is likely to be tabled in the winter session of Parliament, mandates that women subjected to sexual advances — verbal or physical — are within their right to complain against her colleague. A person found guilty of sexual harassment is likely to face financial penalties besides loss of employment and, in case of a graver offence — a police complaint.
In order to address complaints related to sexual harassment, the Bill envisages formation of committees in each organisation, which has more than 10 workers or a local committee at the level of district or sub-district if it is an organisation with less than 10 people.
Officials argued that domestic workers were left out in view of the administrative difficulty in proving sexual harassment due to lack of witnesses and the effectiveness of the local committee in the home of accused. (Source: Domestic helps left out of sexual harassment Bill – The Times of India.)

Legislative classification always seem stupid/illogical but rarely courts interfere on class legislation. The preference to less vulnerable section over more vulnerable section may be illogical but if we take the view of the fact that a large number of such legislations are abused by women to settle other scores, it may be understandable. But solution to that is raise quality of crime investigation. At present quacks investigate the crime and draw arbitrary conclusions.

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