Newskarnataka – Mangalore
Mangalore: Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) here on Saturday, March 15 orgnised a programme where, Robinson D’Souza, former secretary to the government of Karnataka, department of law, delivered a talk on ‘Right to Information (RTI) and harassment at workplace’.
The former secratary Mr. D’Souza assured that the RTI is th best means to get ones work done without paying a bribe. The nine-year-old RTI is the best weapon and the most priceless asset after the Indian Constitution. The authority concerned is bound to give information to the applicant within 30 days. If the reply is irrelevant or fake, there are two options left before the applicant – either to appeal to the immediate superior officer or the information commission. Such are the benifit of RTI. By giving example of Dr Mithra Hegde case in Mangalore, Priyanka Gandhi’s visit to Vellore jail and a secret letter by Dayanidhi Maran to PM which helped in the investigation of the 2G scam, he termed RTI as a weapon to expolre truth.
‘Prevention of harassment at work place’,is a new law which came into force from December 2013.
According to the law, an employer with more than ten employees shall form an Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) at the workplace. If there are fewer employees, the workplace shall come under the Local Compliant Committee (LCC), which is headed by the deputy commissioner (DC). However, if the committee is not formed at the workplace, the employer will be liable to pay a penalty of maximum of Rs 50,000 and sometimes it can also lead to the cancellation of registration of business. In addition to it, the workplace should have internal policies, guidelines issued to the employees and the committee should meet every month, review cases and reports.
He explained that the law covers not only work places where women are employees, the employer is also bound to follow the guidelines of the new law if there is at least one woman as an employee or women who enter the premises as visitors or clients. Besides, a person, who employees a maid servant also comes under this law.
President of KCCI Mohammed Ameen welcomed the gathering. Office-bearers Ram Mohan Rai Maroor, Jeevan Saldanha, M Ganesh Bhat were among others present.
