About Posh act

For years, a standard tactical maneuver deployed by respondents contesting major penalties such as termination or compulsory retirement has been to demand a completely fresh, de novo departmental inquiry under standard service or establishment rules. The core of this argument rested on the premise that an Internal Committee (IC) report is merely a preliminary fact-finding document, and that executing a life-altering career penalty without a secondary, traditional departmental trial violates basic service jurisprudence. The Division Bench of the Bombay High Court in Arun A. Iyer v. IIT Bombay has decisively dismantled this defense, establishing that forcing a second inquiry amounts to an impermissible duplication of proceedings that flies in the face of legislative intent. The Court’s reasoning cuts straight through procedural redundancy. It clarifies that under Section 11 of the POSH Act , 2013, read alongside standard central or institutional rules, the IC is vested with the powers of...

Moving Beyond Tick-Box POSH Implementation. Many organizations continue to approach compliance under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 ( POSH law ) as a calendar-driven obligation an annual e-learning module, a policy upload on the intranet, and a routine declaration in the Board’s Report. While such steps technically satisfy baseline statutory requirements, compliance without culture remains inherently fragile. The law mandates systems constitution of the Internal Committee (IC), inquiry timelines, reporting formats but long-term workplace safety depends on embedded values. Where dignity is not culturally reinforced, policies operate only as reactive instruments after harm has already occurred. Sustainable implementation therefore requires periodic structural audits rather than passive reliance on documentation. Organizations should review whether the IC is properly constituted, whether the external member is truly independen...

Workplace harassment cannot be examined in isolation from broader diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) dynamics because misconduct is rarely about isolated behavior alone, it is often rooted in structural power imbalance. Gender remains central to the statutory framework under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, but power asymmetry is frequently shaped by overlapping factors such as hierarchy, economic dependency, age, disability, marital status, caste, regional background, and employment classification (permanent vs. contractual). A junior contractual employee reporting against a senior revenue-generating leader faces a very different vulnerability matrix compared to a peer-level dispute. Understanding these layered dynamics is essential to meaningful prevention. Intersectionality — a concept widely discussed in global diversity jurisprudence, recognizes that individuals experience discrimination differently based on multipl...