1. Introduction
In June 2026, the National Commission for Women issued an advisory to all states and union territories to ensure immediate and effective implementation of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (“Act”) across government and private workplaces. The advisory recommended establishment of state-level POSH monitoring cells, compliance dashboards, mandatory POSH audits and ensuring functional and compliant internal committees (“IC”).[1] Further, a recent case involving claims of religious conversion and sexual harassment in an Indian organization sent shockwaves through the country. Amidst the barrage of headlines and sensationalised reportage, the organization’s POSH framework was questioned. Appallingly, allegations and claims of harassment were overshadowed by the religious conversion angle and politicisation of the episode.
Organizations continue to drag their feet in complying with the Act believing that scanty workshops and a barely-there IC suffice. This then transforms into systemic reluctance, hesitation in reporting and resolving complaints, ultimately leading to unsafe workplaces.
This newsletter delves deep into how organizations can comply with the Act meaningfully, leading to positive outcomes.
2. Contributories to sexual harassment
Culture, as we know it and its permeation in social interactions can contribute to systemic harassment. Today, hiring policies aim at diversity, meaning workforce is now an assortment of socio-cultural backgrounds. Amalgamation of social backgrounds, prejudice, bias and behaviour in the workplace can ensue and while bias and prejudice may not be apparent, they remain inherent. Organizational policies and codes of conduct can guide appropriate behaviour, but they only regulate and penalize deviant behaviour and cannot ensure removal of prejudice or bias, which makes proper enforcement essential. So, remarks like women belong in the kitchen or asking a female colleague to distribute cake during office celebrations may not be harassment in the strictest sense, but they do (a) reflect inherent prejudice and bias, and (b) contribute to a discriminatory culture and hostile working environment if not remedied.
Sexual harassment can take several forms and may hide in subtle details as jokes, mansplaining, misogyny, casual remarks or abuse of power dynamic and authority. This should not be normalized, and discriminatory, predatory or objectifying remarks should be dealt with seriously and penalized. Enforcement of an inclusive culture should trickle from the top management to the underlings. This can be (and is) a tough diktat for organizations and if not followed, leads to internalization of harassment and perpetuates a discriminatory culture. Then, sensitizing the workforce towards sexual harassment becomes tough. Where casual sexism and gender biases are normalized, people turn a blind eye to sexual harassment, no matter how inappropriate the behaviour may be.
3. Training & Awareness: How’s and what nots
The Act mandates that awareness sessions for workforce should be conducted at regular intervals and often employers choose to conduct sessions at convenience, and some have a more structured time-table to accommodate quarterly or bi-annual sessions.[2] For trainers, the challenge is unique – to keep session(s) relevant and adapt them to the audience as repeated sessions can become droning. Often, the prevailing sentiment among employees is that they have to attend the session, and so they can cease to be meaningful.
From an organizational perspective, POSH awareness should be integrated into the employee code of conduct. Organizations should link participation in sessions to performance reviews for middle and upper management roles. It is crucial that no matter how repetitive, workforce’s takeaways from each session remain constant and so, it is crucial that the top & middle management set clear expectations on required outputs from sessions for both trainers and attendees. Below are some examples of what organizations should expect the trainers to include, and employees to imbibe from awareness sessions
- Information on what is sexual harassment, its forms (tailored as per organization) and paramountcy of complainant’s perception when a complaint arises;
- Mechanism of reporting sexual harassment and empowering workforce to report; and
- Process of handling complaints, resolution and outcomes under law.
From the trainer’s perspective, aim should be to make sessions less sermonizing and should at least
- Differentiate harmless social interactions from sexual harassment, i.e. personal boundaries and encroachment thereof;
- Explain sexual harassment as a concept to white-collar and blue-collar employees;
- Encourage identifying, calling-out where necessary, handling and reporting inappropriate behaviour; and
- Sensitize workforce, enable creation of safe spaces to handle and report sexual harassment.
4. Barriers to inquiry
4.1 Constitution of IC: The Act requires the employer to constitute IC to act on complaints of sexual harassment with wide powers.[3] The IC is also guided by principles of natural justice.[4] Since the choice of members depends entirely upon the employer’s discretion, it becomes crucial to spend time in shortlisting members, ensuring the selected members (a) are experienced enough to handle/lead people; and (b) have the ability to remain neutral and firm when faced with conflict(s). Employers also need to consider workload of nominated employees as an overworked employee may not be able to impart their duties properly or may become overwhelmed during an inquiry. Employers can explore incentivising employees to become IC members by linking their tenure on the IC to leadership targets.
4.2 IC training and navigating bias: After constituting the IC, the next step is to ensure members are trained properly. An overarching requirement is that an IC must be fair and impartial. Given members are nominated by the employer, it is crucial they can navigate inquiry fairly and without bias. Simply said, bias can refer to a lack of objectivity. So, if a member’s thought during an inquiry focuses on the timing of the woman’s complaint, i.e. Why didn’t you complain sooner? this reflects bias which could be driven by a number of personal and interpersonal factors. Training becomes crucial to help IC members identify bias or conflict of interest. Here, the external member in IC also plays a crucial role to drive inquiries by guiding, advising and interpreting the Act to achieve its mandate of prevention and resolution of sexual harassment in workplaces.
4.3 Disclosure of conflict & recusal: IC members should have room to disclose conflict(s), if any, and recuse themselves from inquiry. A member’s conflict stems from their relation with the parties to an inquiry. Since IC members are nominated from an organization, they can be close to either victim or the accused by virtue of their role or equation with them. However, a pre-existing relationship with either party does not presuppose conflict of interest. As a first step, an IC member ought to disclose their dynamic with the victim and/or accused, within the IC. This can also be adopted as a best practice when IC first convenes over a complaint and decides future course of action. Each member should analyse their relationship with either party and see if it makes them biased towards/against them. Then, relevance of such conflict of interest to the inquiry ought to be analysed by the other members. When a member discloses conflict, the IC needs to be reconstituted and this can take time on the employer’s end which can be disadvantageous to the parties. If conflict is not disclosed and is discovered later, it leaves room for the affected party to appeal against the IC’s decision under the Act. Courts have also directed reconstitution of the IC while holding that legitimacy of inquiry is linked to proper constitution and independence of the IC.[5] A possible solution is to constitute IC with more than 4 members (i.e. chairperson & 3 members which is the minimum number required under the Act) and preferably keep an odd number, allowing scope for member(s) to recuse themselves without the quorum being disturbed.[6]
4.4 IC activity and relevance: Given the scheme of the Act, it is also easy to lose focus of the fact that the IC does not only spring in motion when a complaint is received or must act during and after POSH inquiries. The moment an organization has 10 or more employees, IC must be there. And what does it do? Spread awareness, create and update the POSH policy, and ensure zero tolerance to sexual harassment is imbibed in practice through code of conduct. Of course, the organization remains equally responsible to ensure implementation.
5. Impact & Outcome
According to FICCI FLO’s report on Gender Diversity & Career Gap, 2026, women remain severely underrepresented in India’s workforce of 643.3 million, limited to a mere 40.3% (“Report”.)[7] While some industrial sectors such as healthcare and education have higher participation, women are left behind in technology, automotive and retail. Among several other measures, the report recommends ensuring safety and dignity of women by making POSH measurable through mapping of training completion, incident resolution and allowing vendor & contractor coverage. The message is clear, progress of women at work is linked to safety and access thereto. Elements that precede compliance and redressal under the Act, are set out below
- Awareness: Workforce needs to be (or be made) aware of expected conduct at work, healthy boundaries, and zero tolerance of inappropriate behaviour. Conformity follows reinforcement, especially when it is commensurate and timely, if not immediate.
- Conversation: Several myths surround sexual harassment and this is why the Act requires employers to hold awareness sessions and workshops. Employees ought to know that reporting inappropriate behaviour will lead to resolution, not retaliation. Organizations need to accept and acknowledge deviant behaviour and address it, not brush it under the carpet. Some organizations report zero POSH complaints in their annual reports which reflects a utopian scenario or if you’re cynical, then the fact that employees are afraid to report sexual harassment. Key takeaway for organizations: acceptance precedes disclosure.
The flux in employment legislation and compliance frameworks is integrating workplace safety and the Act as measurable standards, thereby requiring organizations to step up and comply. Safe workplaces remain a collective responsibility but culture and reinforcement are driven by C-suite and middle management. Employee training can be sparse or frequent, but unless followed and imbibed by the troop, these measures are insignificant.
Author
[1] See https://cdn.ncw.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/211KB.pdf, last accessed on July 15, 2026
[2] Section 19 of the POSH Act read with Rule 13 of the POSH Rules
[3] Section 4 and Section 11, POSH Act
[4] 2023 SCC OnLine SC 621
[5] 2020 SCC OnLine Del 1555
[6] Section 11 of the POSH Act read with Rule 7 of the POSH Rules
[7] See https://ficciflo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/FICCI-Report-Gender-Diversity-GAP.pdf, last accessed on July 15, 2026.