New Delhi, Oct. 9: The Supreme Court has reiterated that the findings of an office’s sexual harassment probe panel cannot be challenged and thrown out a woman’s appeal against the clean chit to her superior.

“The findings of the (complaints) committee are final. We will not look into the facts,” a bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan told Anju Anand, 37, on Friday.

This was an echo of what the apex court had said last year in a clarification to the 1997 Vishakha judgment that set the benchmarks for dealing with sexual harassment at the workplace.

Punjab and Haryana High Court had earlier rejected Anju’s appeal without even a hearing. It said that since there were three senior women on the panel, it saw no reason to interfere.

Anju, a junior stenographer with the Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Development Corporation (Citco), a public sector unit, has been fighting the harassment battle against deputy general manager (tourism), Arvind Malhotra, for six years.

Malhotra headed Citco’s harassment cell till Anju filed her complaint in 2001, though the apex court’s guidelines in the Vishakha case say only a woman should head such a cell.

The complaint said Malhotra was passing comments loaded with sexual innuendoes and had dropped in at her place several times. Anju’s husband, also a junior stenographer with Citco, testified to Malhotra’s visits.

Anju says Malhotra retaliated by downgrading her annual confidential reports and, after a spat, recommended she be disciplined and transferred.

The complaints committee sat on the inquiry for over two years and came out with a clean chit only after a nudge from the high court. The panel said Anju had not “sufficiently proven” her case but recommended she never be posted under Malhotra again.

Anju has now filed a criminal complaint against Malhotra and must fight her case in a Chandigarh court. Here, the police will investigate and the office panel’s findings will not matter.

This case, however, will be fought under the Indian Penal Code’s dated and vague laws relating to “outraging of modesty”.

The Vishakha judgment aimed at providing a better alternative by defining harassment in terms of casual physical contact, demand or request for sexual favours, vulgar jokes or loaded remarks, display of pornography and the like.

The judgment asked offices to set up harassment cells and laid down guidelines, saying that, for example, at least half the members should be women.