Making remarks about a woman's body structure amounts to insulting her modesty and thus counts as sexual harassment, the Kerala High Court observed on Monday.

The court said this while rejecting a petition filed by a former Kerala State Electricity Board employee challenging a complaint lodged by a senior assistant at the same organisation.

According to the woman’s police complaint, the accused, a sub-engineer at the electricity board, had been making inappropriate comments about her body since 2013 and then made suggestive voice calls and sent inappropriate messages in 2016.

She alleged that the man commented that she had a good body structure.

The police filed a case against the man under the Indian Penal Code for sexual harassment and using words or gestures to harass a woman. He was also booked under the Kerala Police Act for causing nuisance.

The accused man then approached the High Court seeking that the proceedings against him be dismissed, arguing that calling someone’s body structure nice should not count as sexual harassment.

The high court, however, rejected this argument and highlighted the accused's history of harassment – including publicly insulting the complainant and privately messaging and calling her despite multiple complaints to superiors.