Court case(1999) 1 SCC 759

A.K. Chopra, private secretary to the Chairman of the Apparel Export Promotion Council, took a woman clerk-cum-typist to the business centre of a Delhi hotel on the pretext of dictation, tried to sit close to her, touched her and attempted to molest her; she escaped and complained. After a departmental enquiry he was dismissed. A single judge of the Delhi High Court held that he had only "tried to molest" and had not actually molested her, so dismissal was disproportionate; the Division Bench agreed and he was ordered reinstated.

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and restored the dismissal. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates the woman's fundamental rights to equality and to life with dignity; the Court applied the definition in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) and referred to CEDAW and the Beijing Declaration. Physical contact is not an essential ingredient: any act that outrages the modesty of a woman employee or is an unwelcome sexually determined behaviour is harassment. The High Court had exceeded its jurisdiction by reappreciating the evidence and substituting its own view of the punishment; the superior's conduct against a subordinate was a grave misconduct for which dismissal was proper.