How to deal with sexual harassment at work

The Act defines sexual harassment to include unwelcome physical contact and advances, a demand or request for sexual favours, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography, and any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. It is the unwelcomeness that is central, not the respondent's stated intention.

It also covers circumstances that surround the conduct: an implied or explicit promise of preferential treatment, a threat of detrimental treatment, a threat about present or future employment status, interference with work or the creation of an intimidating or offensive working environment, and humiliating treatment likely to affect health or safety.

Workplace is defined broadly. It includes any place visited by the employee arising out of or during employment, including transport provided by the employer. A conference, a client's office, a work trip, a company vehicle and, in current practice, work conducted remotely on employer platforms all sit inside that definition rather than outside it.

The respondent does not have to be an employee. Complaints against clients, customers, vendors, contractors' staff and visitors are within scope, and the employer's duty to act does not disappear because the respondent is commercially important.

The complainant does not have to be a permanent employee. Contract workers, interns, apprentices, probationers, daily wagers, volunteers and women working through a contractor are all covered, and so are women who are not employed at that workplace at all but were present there.

The Constitution's guarantees of equality, the right to practise any profession and the right to life and dignity are the foundation the law rests on, which is why the Act treats harassment as a rights violation rather than a workplace disciplinary matter.

Write a contemporaneous account. Date, time, place, what was said or done, who else was present, and what you did in response. Do it the same day if you can. A dated record made close to the event carries far more weight than a reconstruction months later, and inquiries frequently turn on nothing more than which account is more specific.

Preserve the evidence in its original form. Messages, emails, call logs, rosters, access records and CCTV requests should be saved and, where possible, exported rather than screenshotted. Ask in writing for CCTV footage early — retention periods are short and footage is routinely overwritten before anyone asks.

Note the pattern, not just the incident. Changed shift allocations, exclusion from meetings, a sudden performance concern raised after you objected — these establish the detrimental treatment limb of the definition and are often more provable than the underlying conduct.

Identify witnesses and what each of them actually saw or heard. Colleagues who will not put anything in writing may still confirm a specific fact if asked a specific question by the committee.

Keep your own copies outside the employer's systems. Access to a work email account can be withdrawn at exactly the moment you need it, and evidence that exists only on a company laptop is evidence you may not have.

Decide what outcome you want before you write the complaint. Transfer, an apology, disciplinary action against the respondent, a change to reporting lines, or compensation are different remedies, and the committee can recommend them but generally will not invent them for you.

There is a time limit for filing from the date of the incident, extendable by the committee where it is satisfied that circumstances prevented an earlier complaint. Do not treat the extension as automatic, and do not delay while deciding.

File in writing with the Internal Committee, addressed to the presiding officer. If you cannot write it yourself, a committee member is obliged to help you put it in writing — a complaint is not to be turned away for form.

If the workplace has fewer than ten employees, or the complaint is against the employer, file with the district Local Committee instead. Every district is required to have one, and their details are published on the national portal.

You can also file through SHe-Box, the ministry's single-window portal, which routes the complaint to the relevant committee and allows the status to be monitored. Filing there does not replace the committee — it directs the complaint to it.

Conciliation is available only if you ask for it, and a monetary settlement cannot be the basis of one. If conciliation produces a settlement, it is recorded and no further inquiry takes place, so do not agree to it as a way of ending an uncomfortable process unless the outcome is genuinely what you want.

The inquiry must be completed within the statutory period, and the report submitted to the employer within a further short period. The committee has the powers of a civil court for summoning and requiring documents, and the inquiry is to follow the principles of natural justice — meaning the respondent sees the allegations and can answer them.

Interim relief is available while the inquiry runs. The committee can recommend transferring either party, granting the complainant leave in addition to her normal entitlement, or restraining the respondent from reporting on her work. Ask for it explicitly rather than hoping it is offered.

If the allegation is proved, the committee recommends action under the service rules and can recommend that compensation be deducted from the respondent's salary, assessed against factors including the mental trauma suffered, loss of career opportunity, medical expenses and the respondent's income.

The employer must act on the recommendation within the prescribed period. An employer who does not is exposed to penalty, and repeat non-compliance can affect the business licence or its renewal.

Either party can appeal against the findings or the recommendation, within the period the Act allows, to the authority prescribed under the service rules or the appellate authority notified for that purpose.

The employer's duties are proactive, not reactive. Constituting the Internal Committee, displaying its composition and the penal consequences of harassment at a conspicuous place, organising awareness and orientation programmes, providing the committee with facilities to conduct an inquiry, assisting a complainant who wishes to pursue a criminal complaint, and treating harassment as misconduct under the service rules are all obligations independent of any complaint being made.

The employer must also file an annual report of the number of cases filed and disposed of with the district officer. That reporting obligation is the mechanism by which non-functioning committees become visible to the administration.

Non-compliance carries a fine, doubled for repeat violations, and can extend to cancellation or non-renewal of a licence or registration required to conduct business. This is one of the few Indian employment laws where the employer's failure to build the machinery is itself the offence.

If your workplace has no committee, that is a complaint in itself — take it to the district officer or the Local Committee, and the substantive complaint goes to the Local Committee at the same time.

The POSH route does not displace the criminal law. Sexual harassment, outraging modesty, stalking and assault are offences in their own right, and the employer is required to assist a woman who wishes to file a police complaint. You can pursue both, and the standards and consequences differ.

A false complaint made maliciously can attract action, but the Act is explicit that an inability to substantiate a complaint or provide adequate proof does not amount to a false complaint. Fear of that provision is frequently and wrongly used to discourage complainants.

The identity of the complainant, the respondent, the witnesses, the contents of the complaint and the recommendations are confidential and must not be published. Breach of that confidentiality is itself penalised.

If the committee is not constituted properly, misses its deadlines, or the employer ignores its recommendation, escalate to the district officer, to the National or State Commission for Women, and through the labour or grievance machinery. Where the employer is a company, the corporate compliance route via the board's own reporting obligations is an additional pressure point that is very rarely used and often effective.

The Internal Committee is not independent of the employer. It is composed largely of the employer's own senior employees, with one external member from a body committed to women's causes or a person familiar with the issues. That external member exists precisely because internal composition creates a conflict, and their presence is a requirement rather than a courtesy — a committee sitting without one is improperly constituted.

The presiding officer must be a woman employed at a senior level. Where there is no such woman at that workplace, she is to be nominated from another office or unit of the same employer. Employers who say they have nobody senior enough are describing a problem they are required to solve, not an exemption.

Retaliation is the commonest sequel and the hardest to prove after the fact, which is why documenting the pattern from the start matters. A performance improvement plan issued three weeks after a complaint is a fact worth recording on the day it happens.

Resigning ends your leverage. If you are considering leaving, file first — a complaint made while employed is treated differently from one made afterwards, and the interim relief provisions are only useful while you are still there.

Non-disclosure agreements offered in exchange for withdrawing a complaint are common and are not a neutral commercial arrangement. Take advice before signing anything that closes the statutory route.

Support exists outside the employer. The women's commissions, legal services authorities providing free legal aid, and the national helplines all operate independently of your workplace, and using them does not prejudice the internal process.

Finally, the process is slow, uncomfortable and rarely produces the vindication people imagine at the start. That is not a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to go in with the evidence organised, the outcome you want stated clearly, and a written record from day one.