The Court in New Delhi India awarded the maximum sentence and imposed Indian Rs 50,000 penalty on Sri Lanka’s national carrier Srilankan Airlines for non-compliance of Indian law.
Lalith de Silva
The Airline’s counsel argued before court for leniency as it is Sri Lanka’s national carrier and as it may affect the relations between two countries.
The complainant’s Lawyer Ajay Verma sought maximum penalty in this case as the airline deliberately avoided its responsibility to have implemented an Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) as per Indian Law.
In this case a victim had sought the prosecution of the airline for non compliance of Section 4 of the ‘The Sexual Harassment of Women At Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition And Redressal) Act, 2013 hereinafter called “POSH Act”, which is a punishable offence under Section 26 of the Act “POSH Act” with a fine amounting to a maximum of Rs 50,000 Indian rupes.
After taking into account the conduct of the airline the Judge imposed a maximum penalty.
This is the first such conviction that a court in India has made against any employer, be it local or foreign for violating this law.
In another case which ran concurrently with this, the SriLankan Airline’s Regional Manager Lalith De Silva has already been convicted by the same court on the 16th of September 2020, for sexually harassing and insulting the modesty of one of its Indian national female staff during the time he was posted in India.
Whilst the former SriLankan Airlines employee, filed the case against the national carrier for its failure to have an International Complaint Committee (ICC) under Indian law and sought prosecution, the case against Lalith De Silva the former Regional Manager was filed by the State of India. (By Janaka Ranaweera)
Simon / January 20, 2021
Now the question arises what the Sri Lankan Airlines would do. (1) Is it going to appeal against the Indian Court Order? If Not, would it proceed to take strong disciplinary action for “Neglect” of “Duty” by the “Senior Management” personnel at (a) Legal (b) The Human Resources and (c) Commercial Corporate Divisions? In my opinion, all those “Senior Management” personnel must be held responsible and liable for bringing the National Carrier to “Ridicule” and “Disrepute” Internationally and proceed to “RECOVER” the fine of IR 50,000.00, because all that money is “PUBLIC PROPERTY”. Let that not be another “SIL REDI” case where it would be said “Nidoskota Nidahas”.
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Burt / January 20, 2021
I seems the kangaroo court standards of Sri Lanka does not cut it in India.
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Raj-UK / January 21, 2021
Sri Lankan Air is touted as the flag carrier of the nation, which is the excuse given for pumping unlimited funds to keep it going. In reality, it is a hugely loss making govt. enterprise, exclusively (mis)managed by govt. cronies & fat cat bureaucrats at the expense of the tax payer. However, now the pride of SL is tarnished internationally in an embarrassing law suit involving a senior Manager outside the judiciary of SL. The sexual misconduct & apparent indifference by the management not only reflects badly on the airline but the whole country as well. At this time when airlines are going bust all over the world (with no state handouts), shouldn’t the SL govt. clamp down on wasteful expenditure? A friend of mine, a BA steward for more than 10 years, was made redundant recently & is now working as a care worker in an old peoples’ home. Even when he was working for BA, his pay was not much higher than his current pay as a care worker & never enjoyed perks, such as, unlimited free travel.
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