Saudia withdraws its appeal

MUMBAI, May 2: The Saudi Arabian Airlines SAA on Thursday withdrew its appeal against the Bombay High Court's order restraining it from...

MUMBAI, May 2: The Saudi Arabian Airlines SAA on Thursday withdrew its appeal against the Bombay High Court8217;s order restraining it from transferring Shehnaz Sani, a victim of sexual harassment in the company, to Chennai. SAA counsel Jamshed Cama withdrew the application when the division bench of the Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice S Radhakrishnan moved to dismiss it.

The division bench also refused to pass an order which would have allowed the company to not provide her any work in the office of Mumbai. With this emphatic support from the division bench, the order passed by Justice A P Shah, setting aside her transfer to Chennai and directing the SAA to provide her work in Mumbai itself, has been upheld.

Shehnaz Sani has been seeking the court8217;s intervention to help her get dues at the workplace. After winning landmark judgements in the Labour Court as well as the Bombay High Court, where her claims of sexual harassment were upheld and SAA was directed to reinstate her, Sani8217;s trystcontinues.

The SAA had sought to appeal against the order of Justice A P Shah on the ground that as SAA is a foreign company, under the rules, no suit as has been filed by Sani could be filed against it without prior permission from the Central Government. The Bombay High Court as such could have no jurisdiction in such cases, it was argued. However, since the case of the jurisdiction was to be decided by the single judge bench of Justice A P Shah itself, the division bench of the Chief Justice found no reason for entertaining the appeal.

Counsel for the petitioner, Anand Grover, had also argued that under section 9 A of the amended Civil Procedure Code, the court had the right to grant an interim relief first and then decide the question of jurisdiction. In this case, since the company was based in Mumbai, it was well within the jurisdiction of the Bombay High Court to entertain Sani8217;s suit and pass interim relief.

Sani has sought to create another legal landmark by suing the company for Rs one crorefor the emotional trauma she has suffered. She has sued the SAA for general, specific and punitive damages for their various acts and omissions which led to her getting harassed sexually at the workplace from 1983 to 1985. The harassment and humiliation suffered by her cost her not only her professional life, where all her juniors are now placed in posts higher than her, but also fractured her marital relations and personal life, she has pleaded.

After the division bench of the Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice A P Shah dismissed an appeal filed by SAA and directed that she be reinstated in an order of February 5, 1999, Sani obtained her letter of reinstatement and joined service on March 1. She was asked to resume her duties as a Customer Service Agent even though, according to her, had she not been victimised and her services not wrongfully terminated in 1985, she would have been promoted to the post of a Lead Customer Service Agent.

Story continues below this ad

She then received her transfer orders to Chennai on March 3because, as the counsel for SAA, Cama later told the bench of the Chief Justice, 8220;she was vitiating the atmosphere8221;. Justice Shah however restrained the transfer and on Thursday, the division bench of the Chief Justice too upheld the order of Shah.

A battle-scared Sani, however, will still take some time to return to her job. The sudden transfer orders to Chennai is learnt to have caused her acute mental anguish, and she is taking medical help to come back to her daily routine. A medical certificate to this extent has also been attested to by the SAA company doctor.