From Courtrooms to Newsrooms: Interpreting PoSH Compliance in India

A decade after its enactment, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 remains more promise than practice across large parts of India. Courts have issued landmark rulings expanding its scope and demanding compliance. Journalists and activists have documented persistent failures — non-existent Internal Complaints Committees, unreported cases, and institutional indifference. Together, the legal record and the media record tell a story of a law that is slowly being forced, case by case and report by report, into reality.

This article examines that story in two parts: first, through the lens of recent judicial decisions that have shaped how the Act is interpreted and enforced; and second, through media reports and public data that reveal the ground-level compliance picture. The aim is to hold both alongside each other — the law as courts read it, and the law as it is actually lived.

The Ola Case: Expanding Who Counts as an Employee#

In 2018, a woman booked an Ola taxi in Bangalore and experienced sexual harassment during the ride. When she filed a complaint on the platform, she was informed that the driver had been blacklisted — but no formal inquiry was initiated. She then filed a writ petition seeking a directive to Ola's Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) to inquire into her complaint under Section 11 of the PoSH Act.

Ola's defence was straightforward: its drivers are independent contractors, not employees, and therefore its ICC has no jurisdiction under the Act. The court rejected this. Justice Kamal held that the term "employee" under Section 2(f) must be interpreted broadly and must include workers engaged through technology platforms. The court found that Ola's subscription agreement does not strip the driver of employee status for the purposes of PoSH, directed the ICC to complete its inquiry within 90 days, and awarded damages of Rs. 5 lakhs to the complainant — signalling strict accountability.

The judgment prioritises the Act's protective purpose over technical classifications. By treating a gig-economy platform worker as an employee under PoSH, the court expanded the Act's reach into a sector employing millions of women — delivery riders, domestic workers placed through apps, and others in informal digital labour. The decision is, however, not final: a vacation bench of the Karnataka High Court has issued an interim stay on appeal. The question of gig-worker coverage under PoSH remains open.

The Aureliano Fernandes Case: Natural Justice and the Limits of Compliance#

Aureliano Fernandes, a professor at Goa University, faced multiple allegations of sexual harassment by female students. The university's internal committee, constituted under the then-applicable Vishaka guidelines, found him guilty and dismissed him. The Bombay High Court upheld the proceedings. Fernandes appealed to the Supreme Court, raising the question of whether the committee's inquiry had violated principles of natural justice.

The case predates the PoSH Act — it fell under the Vishaka Guidelines — but the Supreme Court's holding had wide implications for PoSH enforcement. The court held that all committees, whether constituted under Vishaka or under the PoSH Act, are bound by principles of natural justice. The accused must be informed of the allegations, evidence must be disclosed to him, and he must be allowed to defend himself. The court reiterated that "any inquiry must doubly conform to a just, fair and reasonable procedure." On the facts, the court found procedural lapses — a rushed hearing and denial of cross-examination.

More significantly, the judgment went beyond the individual case. The court made broad observations about systemic non-compliance with PoSH across states and institutions, and directed governments to undertake a time-bound audit. It effectively converted the Act's promise into a continuing mandamus: institutions must proactively comply, or face judicial oversight and public identification as defaulters.

For women who have filed complaints and watched proceedings collapse on technical grounds, the judgment sends an important signal — procedural rigour cuts both ways, and it protects the integrity of the process itself.

What the Newsrooms Found#

While courts have been expanding the Act's reach, media reports and public data have documented a persistent compliance deficit — particularly in educational institutions.

In July 2025, the Times of India reported on the Odisha government's steps to enforce PoSH in colleges following a tragic incident in Balasore, where a student set herself on fire after alleged sexual harassment. The state government announced that college principals' salaries would be withheld if ICCs were not constituted within a month, committed to full compliance in higher educational institutions, and mandated the uploading of ICC details on the national SHe-Box portal. The reporting also noted that the government warned against false complaints — a recurrent and troubling reflex in institutional responses to harassment policy.

A contemporaneous New Indian Express report, based on an RTI filed by an activist in Tamil Nadu, found that even after more than a decade of the PoSH Act, 46 out of 180 state-run colleges had not constituted an ICC. Of around 190 institutions questioned, only 80 responded at all, and only 9 provided any details about their ICC — this despite the state government having issued a compliance directive to all higher educational institutions in September 2024. The data reveals not merely non-compliance but a culture of non-reporting: institutions that have not formed ICCs are also the institutions least likely to tell anyone that they haven't.

The corporate sector presents a different but related picture. An August 2024 Economic Times report noted that almost half of working women remain concerned about their personal safety, and 43% reported having experienced harassment recently. Data from the Udaiti Foundation disclosed a 29% jump in PoSH complaints at NSE-listed companies within a single year, while the number of pending cases grew by 67%. Reporting is rising; resolution is lagging. Legal mandates have created mechanisms, but the mechanisms are not clearing the backlog.

Institutional disclosures offer some counterpoint. The National Commission for Women's Annual Report for 2023–24 noted that it had conducted public awareness workshops across the country and trained around 3,000 participants on the PoSH Act during the year. Statutory bodies are doing some of the work — but the scale of the awareness deficit makes the effort appear modest.

Conclusion#

Together, the courtroom record and the media record point to the same structural problem: the PoSH Act is not self-implementing, and the institutions responsible for implementing it — employers, universities, bar councils, gig platforms — have consistently required external pressure before acting. That pressure has come from courts, journalists, activists, and RTI filers. It has produced real movement in specific cases. But it has not produced systemic change.

The gap between the Act's text and its reality is not a gap of law. The courts have interpreted the Act broadly and correctly. The gap is one of institutional will — and closing it will require both continued judicial supervision and the kind of public accountability that media scrutiny, however imperfect, continues to provide.