In this article, Keshav Khandelwal discusses steps for tackling workplace bullying legally.

Introduction

“Blowing out someone else’s candle won’t make yours shine brighter”

Bullying is an aggressive behaviour with hostile intent involving use of force, threat, power to abuse, dominate and intimidate others. Those involved in bullying use words, actions and physical contact with the victim to achieve their intended outcome. Bullying is a scathing conduct mostly prevalent in schools and workplaces. Victims of such behaviour can become drugs and alcohol abuse, have physical and emotional health issues and may suffer from low self-esteem.

How to tackle workplace bullying legally

India has no specific laws related to bullying. Such issues are minimally dealt by using different sections of IPC such as Section 339– Wrongful restraint, Section 340– Wrongful confinement, Section 506– Punishment for criminal intimidation, Section 323– Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt, Section 306– Abetment of suicide. As per the survey of

National Crime Prevention Council 2006, 40% of the teens have experienced cyberbullying making this issue of utmost importance. Moreover, internet bullying has also become a major problem which has not been strictly dealt with Indian laws in the time when cyberbullying is taking serious roots in India.

Provisions of Indian Penal Code are silent in dealing with issues related to cyberbullying, school bullying by peers, organisational or workplace bullying which includes mob behaviour, role of active bystander, effects on passive bystander, tyrannical behaviour, coercive power and many related aspects i.e. insecure colleague conspiring collectively to pull a person down in public meetings with the bosses, forcing to opt out of the project, using other’s work and getting credits.

Harassment in workplaces are only dealt by the guidelines mentioned in the case of Vishakha v. State of Rajasthan(1997 6 SCC 241) and it covers only the sexual harassment of a woman, not the non-sexual harassment which has wider adjunct in workplace bullying. No Indian laws explicitly talk about the bullying of male personnel in the workplace which causes a huge amount of loss to the talents and economic resources of the country.

Bullying in school and colleges

A survey showed that 60.4% of children were bullied in their school time and it is in the form of teasing, calling names and physical interactions. Bullying in colleges mostly takes place in form of ragging only.

For governing the ragging related activities Raghavan Committee guidelines and UGC regulations are there acting as measures for preventing ragging done by senior students on juniors. But both of these are silent while dealing with issues related to bullying by the peer group of students. So pertaining to these reasons there is a scope for new legislation or some amendments in IPC for mitigating bullying in schools and colleges.

Workplace/Organisational Bullying

Workplace bullying is a dynamic term which involves negative behaviour comprising of aggression, hostility, intimidation, and harm characterised by repetition and persistence, displayed by an individual or group and directed towards another individual or group at work in the context of an existing or evolving unequal power relationship. The issue of workplace bullying is so gigantic that it has emerged in Bollywood movies like Rocket Singh and Kartik-Calling-Kartik. Workplace bullying or organisational bullying is equitable to yelling, name-calling, mocking, and intimidating a person in the workplace. It can be done by managers or co-workers. It generates lots of stress-related health complications like hypertension, immune disorders, depression, and anxiety. The person’s immediate job and career are also disrupted.

Two types of bullying behaviour are:

1) Person-related bullying which involves making insulting remarks, teasing, spreading gossip or rumors, persistent criticism, intimidation, and threats.

2) Task-related bullying which involves giving unreasonable and unmanageable deadlines, excessive monitoring of work and assigning meaningless or no tasks.

Bullying at workplaces is still overlooked by India’s lawmakers, even though thousands of young men and women succumb to bullycide all over the country. Though Indian Law speaks about Sexual Harassment at a workplace, no mention of bullying as a non-sexual harassment against the employees is there and it includes activities such as Harassment based on race, sex, religion, age, disability, national origin, and stalking. Also, roles of mob-behavior, active-bystander, tyrant, coercive power in bullying is not mentioned in any law but is treated as a crime in many countries. Indian legal system always tries to negate the term bullying as an offence and try to link it with certain other offence which further enlarges the problem of bullying as not being recognized as a separate offence. Bullying in workplaces is dealt only when the situation becomes cruel leading to suicide and depression to the bullied person. Organizational bullying has always being understood within the different offences through which it has surmised itself into offences of abetment to suicide [Madan Mohan Singh v. State of Gujarat and Anr (2010) 8 SCC 628], sexual harassment by employer, hurt or injury voluntarily caused by employer under IPC and has not been linked with criminal law in relation to labour law issues of discrimination, equality in promotion and wages and exploitation of personnel.

Workplace non-sexual harassment by superior and colleagues on engineer had resulted in suicide and Court has observed that administrative control and discipline cannot be exercised by superior to harass, bully or scolding inhumanly [Praveen Pradhan vs. State of Uttaranchal (2012) 9 SCC 734]. Many HCs in various cases like Dr. Subhash Manchanda v. State Of U.P. & Others [(2006) 9 Adj 208] and Sanjay Singhal v. The State [(2007) Crl. L. J 4568] has refused to quash the proceedings against superior on the charge of abetment of suicide under Section 482 of Cr.P.C, 1973. For arriving at this decision, these court have shown non-compatibility with SC previous judgments like Madan Mohan Singh v. State of Gujarat [(2010) 8 SCC 628] and Netai Dutta v. State Of West Bengal [(2005) 2 SCC 659] in the pretext of differentiating facts and circumstances but divergent conclusions have emerged on the issue of humility at workplace. SC judgments on the above-mentioned issues are based only on section 306 (Abetment to suicide) and had not taken conducts affecting rights of employees and liability of the employer. Thus two different opinions are existing as primarily not recognizing bullying as a crime in itself which has caused the courts to part ways with each other and secondly limiting the powers of employers which are to be dealt with amending IPC so as to include bullying as a crime.

ANTI WORKPLACE BULLYING LAWS IN INDIA

Though no specific law deals categorically deal with workplace bullying the perusal of some of the legislation can provide help to mitigate workplace bullying where non-sexual harassment or bullying behavior occurs, i.e.,

• NO DELAY IN PAYMENT OF WAGES – Section 5 of the Payment of the Wages Act, 1936 provides timely payment of wages.
• NO UNREASONABLE DEDUCTION OF WAGES – Section 7-13 of the Payment of the Wages Act, 1936 provides when deductions are to be made and up to what extent deductions can be made.
• EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK – Equal Remuneration Act 1976 provides that each and every employee should receive the same remuneration for similar nature of work.
• DEFAMATION  – Sec 500 of IPC provides punishment for defamation and civil suit can be filed as civil wrong in Law of torts.
• UNREASONABLE CLAUSES IN THE EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT– Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 regulates the dismissal regulation and Chapter 5A of the act deals with Lay Off and retrenchment procedures to be followed by the companies.
• MATERNITY BENEFIT ACT, 1961– It enshrines non-discriminatory treatment to women under pregnancy and provides for maternity benefits given to woman under recovery from pregnancy.
• SEC 24 A OF THE PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES ACT, 1995– It mandates for non-discrimination in Employment.
• NO SEX DISCRIMINATION IN PROVIDING WAGES– According to Article 39(d) of the Constitution and Section 2(h) of the Equal Remuneration Act 1976, it is the duty of the employer that every employee whether male or female should equal remuneration for equal work

Conclusion

Harassment and bullying of employees at workplace inherently vitiate their right to live with human dignity enlightened by our constitution. Article 42 and Article 43 of the constitution directs the state to provide provisions securing just and humane conditions of work. So the state should make it possible for employees to work free of any bullying and harassment by amending IPC.

A wider scope of Article 21 has included faculties of thinking and feeling [Francis Coralie Mullin v. Ut Of Delhi 1981 SCR (2) 516], and thus bullying vitiating these faculties should be made a crime and unconstitutional. Today many issues prevalent in form of bullying by peers, taking credit of some other’s work, excessive monitoring and teasing in the workplace by employers are some of the major enigmas which are not currently dealt by Indian laws and legislations which has led to an escalation of suicide rates, depression and tendency to commit a crime. Thus to avoid degradation of the employees, wastage of talent and economic resources, upsurging crime rate and other health issues there is a need for a specific law to deal with such bullying like situations.

References

1. Bullying, American Psychological Association, available at http://www.apa.org/topics/bullying/
2. India lacking laws to curb cyberbullying, available at http://www.ciol.com/india-lacking-laws-curb-cyberbullying/.
3. Indian Journal of Pediatrics in March 2011, Volume 78, Issue 3, pp. 307–310.
4. Strictly enforce anti–ragging regulations: Raghavan panel, The Hindu, available at http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/Strictly-enforce-anti-ragging-regulations-Raghavan-panel/article15239970.ece.
5. UGC Regulations on Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions, 2009.
6. Einarsen et al., 2011; Hoel and Beale, 2006; Tracy et al., 2006.
7. Bullying in the Indian workplace: A study of the ITES-BPO sector, by Premilla D’Cruz, Charlotte Rayner, available at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download.