The Supreme Court on Monday stayed proceedings before an inquiry committee set by the Maharashtra State Commission for Women to look into charges of sexual harassment against senior officials of global consultancy firm KPMG (India).

The firm in its plea had expressed apprehensions that the inquiry committee may not give a fair decision as there was clear bias against it.

A bench headed by Justice R V Raveendran, while issuing notice to the complainant, stayed the proceedings before the Maharashtra State Commission for Women, which had summoned firm's CEO Russell Parera.

A former director of KPMG, Minakshi Maheshwari, had filed a sexual harassment case with the National Commission for Women alleging that she received objectionable e-mails and was subject to obscene and vulgar language by her seniors.

Maheshwari had sued her senior colleagues, including KPMG India senior partner and head of its financial services Vikram Uttam Singh, for sexual harassment at workplace.

She alleged she was denied promotion and despite repeated complaints the multinational did nothing to defuse the "hostile environment."

Challenging the interim order of the Bombay High Court that asked KPMG (India) CEO Russell Parera to appear before the inquiry committee, the firm said that the panel had no jurisdiction to look into the matter and had been constituted in violation of laws laid down by the apex court in the Vishaka case.

The accountancy firm said there was clear bias against it as the committee members had attended a workshop where they had commented against the company.

"There is a total lack of transparency in conducting the proceedings by the MSCW committee. . . The petitioner has every reason to believe that the proceedings are not likely to be impartial or fair," Sundaram said.

KPMG further said that it had also set up an in-house inquiry committee in accordance with the Supreme Court guidelines but the complainant had expressed her inability to appear before it.

Besides an external expert on such matters, the in-house panel has two other advisors to the KPMG group on its board. Stating that the firm had offered to co-opt any other person of repute in place of the members she had reservations about to allay her apprehensions, KPMG said Maheshwari had made such allegations after a lapse of four months from her termination.

According to the petition, Maheshwari was not comfortable working as part of the team which resulted in friction between her and her colleagues.