Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Chief Swati Maliwal on Thursday wrote to Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar demanding the creation of a separate database of government officials who are accused of crimes against women and children. This comes days after Women and Child Development (WCD) director Premoday Khakha was arrested for allegedly raping a minor girl. On X (formerly known as Twitter), Maliwal said in their inquiry they found that three cases are already going on in the High Court against the rape-accused WCD officer. Hence, she sent her suggestions to the Chief Secretary of Delhi to ensure no such incident takes place in the future.
In her letter to Kumar, Maliwal said the panel had issued a notice to the Department of Women and Child Development and Delhi Police over the incident.
She said, "The commission has been informed that four complaints regarding sexual harassment at the workplace were lodged against the accused person earlier. It is learnt that three complaints were submitted by three separate women while the fourth complaint was anonymous. All three complainants approached the High Court of Delhi.”
The letter also mentioned that one of the applications was disposed of by the high court as the remaining two are pending.
Maliwal also wrote, "It appears that the accused might be a serial offender and it's scary to imagine the access he had to women and children at large, having been posted in the sensitive department of Women and Child Development.”
Notably, Maliwal recommended that the accused "needs to be terminated with immediate effect". She further said a database of government officials accused of crimes against women and children should be created irrespective of the nature and status of the complaints.
In the letter, she said, "This database should also be shared with the Delhi Commission for Women. All these past and pending complaints should be re-examined by a committee of senior most officers and gender experts, and a decision should be taken on every officer as to whether the concerned person is fit to be posted in sensitive departments like the Women and Child Development, Social Welfare, Education...where they may have access to women and girls at large.”
She also said all such databases of all officers with crimes against women and children should also be shared regularly with the commission along with the decision taken in each of the cases.
Meanwhile, she also demanded that the government should set up a new robust Internal Complaints Committee under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act with more external experts from leading NGOs working on gender issues.
The committee must examine all such pending complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace against officers posted in the Delhi government and submit its report urgently to the government as well as the commission.
Thai came after Premoday Khakha was suspended from his post as deputy director in the Women and Child Development (WCD) department following a direction from Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal earlier.
Khakha is accused of raping a minor girl many times and impregnating her. His wife, Seema Rani, is also accused of giving the girl abortion pills to terminate her pregnancy.