Love Contracts in Indian Context

Some employers use love contract to ensure that their liabilities are minimized in case the love relationships of employees turn into sexual harassment cases. The validity of such love contracts in India could be viewed from the judgments of Indian Courts on cases of sexual harassment at work places.

In Apparel Export Promotion Council Vs AK Chopra case 1999, Supreme Court had upheld the dismissal of a senior male officer found guilty of harassing a subordinate female employee. The verdict of the case was based on the verdict of another case- Vishaka Vs State of Rajasthan1997 which provides the guidelines to be adopted at all workplaces. Court viewed the harassment at work place as the violation of the constitutional rights. However, the guidelines provided by the apex court does not mention anything on "Consensual sexual relationship". Based on the details of the guidelines, experts opine that consensual sexual relationship between adults at workplaces is not illegal in India. Thus, contracts that forces employees to acknowledge such relationship in writing may stand void in an Indian Court. In case court finds the prescribed guidelines to be adopted at workplace were not followed, the companies can't disown the responsibility in the name of the contract.

I also do not see love contracts as a safeguard against nepotism as many factors other than love leads to personal preferences and nepotism. Nepotism is very common among people of same sex. So justifying love contracts as safeguard against nepotism holds no ground

In this context I feel any responsible organization must ensure to generate adequate awareness among employees related to the regulatory issues regarding workplace. If the organization has a sound policies of management conduct and workplace environment it must not worry to put everything into contract. The employees could get involved issues beyond love (cheating, forgery, bribe etc.) in absence a clear guideline and adequate awareness. It is not possible to have written agreement on each issue. So it is better to nurture an environment and culture of responsibility. De-linking the human elements and emotions from organizational life is not possible as long as people work in them. However, an employer needs to know which actions should be controlled and which not. That's what called managing. There are some responsibilities of being an employer. Employers need to own them instead of shredding away the responsibilities through contracts.

In the case of Intermediaries Technology Limited, I see a self-contradiction in the functioning of the organization. On one hand the company feels that Pritam is suitable to handle higher roles and responsibilities of Senior Manager on the other hand they feel Pritam could be too naive who could bring problems to the organization by dehumanizing acts; they expect him to be too idiotic to sign contracts without even reading them.