SafeWork — POSH compliance, or the consequences

An employee has just written to you. She wants to file a complaint.

The clock started the moment she pressed send. You get 90 days to finish the inquiry. 10 days to send the report. 60 days to act on it. Most owners learn these numbers only after they've missed one.

Can't answer these in
10 seconds? You're not ready.

None of these are trick questions. A labour inspector can ask you any of them. So can her lawyer. So can your CA.

Who in your company is allowed to receive that complaint? Name them.

10 staff or more? You need an Internal Committee. A senior woman heads it. At least 2 more people from your staff. One outsider from an NGO. And half the committee must be women.

Section 4, POSH Act 2013

You have offices in 3 cities. How many committees do you have?

You need 3. One per office, not one per company. Having a single committee at head office is the most common mistake we see. It's also the easiest one for an inspector to prove.

Section 4(1)

You set up your committee in 2022. When did the head's term end?

3 years is the limit for every member. Nobody sends you a reminder. And once a term has lapsed, every inquiry that committee ran can be challenged.

Section 4(3)

It's April. What number goes into your Board report?

Complaints received. Complaints closed. Cases still open after 90 days. This goes to the District Officer every year, and into your Directors' Report. If nobody has been counting, you're about to sign a number you can't back up.

Section 21 with Rule 14 · Companies (Accounts) Rules 8(5)(x)

Can you prove the employee who left last month was trained?

Training your staff is not optional, and the number of sessions you ran goes into your annual filing. A PPT on Google Drive is not proof. A dated record for each employee is.

Section 19(c) with Rule 13

Three different laws.
Three different people who pay.

Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 · Section 75

3 years

This one is criminal. It goes on a person, not the company. Unwanted touching. Asking for sexual favours. Showing porn to a woman. Up to 3 years in jail, or a fine, or both.

Dirty remarks carry up to 1 year. A board resolution won't settle this, and no insurance policy covers it.

POSH Act, 2013 · Section 26

₹0

This one is on you, as the employer. And ₹50,000 is the cheap part. No committee? Ignored what your committee recommended? Fine up to ₹50,000.

Get convicted a second time and the fine doubles. Worse, the government can cancel or refuse to renew the licence you need to run the business at all. That's the part that shuts companies down. Not the ₹50,000.

Enforcement · Supreme Court, 12 May 2023

Audited

In May 2023 the Supreme Court looked at how badly this law was being followed and gave orders to fix it. One of them: every state must survey its districts and check which employers actually have a committee. Government offices and private companies both.

Somebody is checking now.

Reported12 May 2023

Supreme Court finds “serious lacunae” in how the POSH Act is being run

District-wise surveys ordered

The Court, hearing an appeal arising from an inquiry at a university, set out directions for effective implementation of the 2013 Act after finding significant shortcomings in the way it was being applied.

Among them, States and Union Territories were directed to undertake district-wise surveys establishing whether employers, in both the public and private sectors, had in fact constituted Internal Committees as the Act requires.

Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa & Ors.

Bare Act · extractPOSH 2013

Section 26 — Penalty for non-compliance

Where the employer fails to constitute an Internal Committee, or to act upon the recommendations of the Committee, or contravenes the provisions of this Act, he shall be punishable with fine which may extend to fifty thousand rupees.

On a second conviction for the same offence, the employer is liable to twice the punishment — and to withdrawal, non-renewal or cancellation of the licence or registration required to carry on the business.

Paraphrased from s.26(1) and s.26(2)

Bare Act · extractBNS 2023

Section 75 — Sexual harassment

Physical contact and advances involving unwelcome and explicit sexual overtures, a demand or request for sexual favours, or showing pornography against a woman's will: rigorous imprisonment up to three years, or fine, or both.

Making sexually coloured remarks: imprisonment up to one year, or fine, or both.

Paraphrased from s.75, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita

Four deadlines start the day
a complaint is filed.

Miss one and it stays on the record. You can't fix it later. And a spreadsheet won't remind you.

Your staff see the training.
You're buying what sits behind it.

Anyone can sell you a video. What you actually need is the file you hand over when someone asks you to prove it.

Proof for every employee

13 modules. Each one dated, with time spent, test score, and a certificate carrying a number anyone can check. We also save which version of the course that person saw.

Deadlines that watch themselves

Every complaint gets its 4 deadlines, counting down. And we check your committee against Section 4 each time you open it — including the expired term nobody spots.

Your annual filing, ready

The Section 21 report for the District Officer, and the numbers for your Board report. Built from your actual records, not from memory in the last week of March.

Privacy is built into the software, not just written in a policy. Only the woman who complained and her committee can read a complaint. Not HR. Not you. Your admin can still pull the yearly numbers for the filing without opening a single case — which is exactly what Section 16 and Rule 14 ask of you together.

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You run the company

Tell us how many staff you have and how many offices. We'll tell you exactly what the law needs from you, and what it takes to answer the 5 questions above. If you're already covered, we'll tell you that too.

Check if we're compliant

You are a Chartered Accountant

Your clients ask you about this in March and you have nowhere good to send them. We have special terms for CAs who bring us their clients. One call is enough to find out.

Ask about CA terms

An employee has just written to you. She wants to file a complaint.

Can't answer these in10 seconds? You're not ready.

Three different laws.Three different people who pay.