Executive Summary

A POSH committee at a Kerala technology employer had been constituted on paper but not in law. There was no external member. The presiding officer was not a woman employed at a senior level at that workplace. TGC Legal was asked to review the position after a complaint reached the committee and the inquiry began to drift past its statutory window.

The employer was covered by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013. It had more than ten workers, so an internal committee was mandatory under Section 4.

Three defects were found. Composition did not meet the statute. No inquiry procedure had been written down, so members were improvising. And no annual report had ever been filed with the District Officer under Section 21.

The committee was reconstituted before the inquiry went further. An external member was appointed. A written procedure was adopted, covering notice, documents, cross questions, confidentiality and the recording of proceedings.

The inquiry then ran to its conclusion inside the statutory period, with the report going to the employer within the time set by Section 13. Awareness sessions and a compliant policy followed. The annual report obligation was brought current and put on a recurring calendar.

Unsure whether your internal committee meets Section 4 as written? Explore our workplace compliance work, or contact the firm about a committee review.

Client Overview

The employer is a technology services company operating from Kerala, with a development centre in Kochi and a smaller delivery office in Bengaluru. Headcount runs into the low hundreds across engineering, quality, delivery and support functions.

Client work is mostly offshore delivery for overseas customers. Several of those customers run vendor audits, and workplace policy is one of the audited items. That is often what first brings a POSH question to a management meeting.

The company had a policy document. It had been downloaded, lightly edited and signed off some years earlier. Nobody had mapped it against the Act section by section.

Two offices created a second problem. Workers at the Bengaluru site had no committee available to them locally, and no clarity on where a complaint should go. The Act contemplates a committee at each administrative unit or office where required.

There was goodwill and no bad intent anywhere in the picture. What was missing was the procedural discipline that the statute assumes and that an audit will eventually test.

Business Challenges

The committee was not defective because anyone cut corners. It was defective because the statute sets specific requirements that a generic policy template does not carry across. The complaint simply exposed that.

Each defect on its own was fixable. Together, and with a live complaint running, they created real risk to the validity of whatever the committee decided.

Why can a wrongly constituted POSH committee undo its own findings?

Section 4 sets who must sit on the committee. It is not guidance. A committee that departs from it is open to challenge on that ground alone, regardless of how carefully it conducted the inquiry.

Here there was no external member. That requirement exists to bring an outside view into a process where every other participant draws a salary from the same employer.

The presiding officer was also a difficulty. The Act requires a woman employed at a senior level at that workplace. The person appointed sat at the Bengaluru office and was not senior within the Kochi unit.

In practice that means delay and rework. A finding set aside on composition sends everyone back to the start, with witnesses who have already given one account and a workforce that has already formed a view.

What happens when an inquiry runs past ninety days?

The Act sets an outer limit for completing the inquiry. Drift past it does not automatically void the process, but it weakens it and invites argument at the appeal stage.

Drift here came from ordinary causes. Members travelled. Sittings were postponed for delivery deadlines. Nobody was tracking the elapsed days against the statutory clock.

Delay also damages the parties. The complainant continues to work alongside unresolved allegations. The respondent sits under a cloud with no finding either way.

The fix was administrative rather than legal. Sittings were calendared in advance for the whole inquiry, with dates protected in the same way as client delivery milestones.

Is a written inquiry procedure actually required?

The Act and the 2013 Rules set out how an inquiry is to be conducted, including service of the complaint, the response, and the opportunity to be heard. Committees still need to translate that into a working procedure.

Without one, members improvise. Notice periods vary between sittings. Documents reach one party and not the other. Questions get asked informally and never recorded.

That improvisation is what appellate scrutiny finds first. Natural justice is tested on the record, and an incomplete record is difficult to defend afterwards.

The committee here had held sittings with no minutes at all for the first two meetings. Reconstructing them later was possible but unsatisfactory.

Why had no annual report ever been filed?

Section 21 requires the committee to prepare an annual report and submit it to the employer and to the District Officer. Section 22 requires the employer to include case numbers in its own annual report.

Neither had happened, in any year. Nobody had been told it was their task, and no calendar entry existed anywhere in the company.

This is the most commonly missed obligation in the whole statute. It is also the easiest for a District Officer or an auditor to check, because absence is obvious. Our note on what employers must know about POSH complaints sets the obligations out in order.

Section 26 sets out penal consequences for failure to comply with obligations under the Act. Repeat default can carry heavier consequences, including effects on licences or registrations.

Wondering whether your committee has ever filed the Section 21 report? Read more about our POSH advisory and compliance.

Business Objectives

The instruction had two halves. Stabilise the live inquiry so it could be completed lawfully. Then rebuild the standing arrangement so the next complaint would not need outside help at all.

What did the employer actually need to achieve?

A defensible inquiry was the first need. The company wanted a process that would hold up if it were examined later, whichever way the finding went.

It also wanted the matter handled without turning the office into a rumour mill. Confidentiality obligations under the Act were treated as a working requirement, not a footnote.

The second need was structural. Vendor audits from overseas customers were coming, and the compliance answer had to be documentary rather than verbal.

Finally, management wanted the committee to be able to run the next matter itself, with counsel available for questions rather than seated at every sitting.

Why reconstitute the committee instead of continuing?

Continuing was tempting because the inquiry was already underway. It was also the weaker option, because every day of further work rested on a composition that could be challenged.

Reconstitution cost time. It did not cost the inquiry, because the process was restarted properly rather than patched midway.

The alternative was to complete an inquiry that might later be set aside. That outcome would have been worse for both parties than a short delay.

The decision was recorded in writing, with reasons. When a company changes course during a live matter, the reasoning needs to be on file.

What defined success for this engagement?

Three markers were set. A committee that matched Section 4 on the day it was notified. An inquiry completed within the statutory window with a full record.

And an obligations calendar covering the annual report, the term of office of members, awareness sessions and policy review.

Success was deliberately not defined by the outcome of the complaint. That outcome belonged to the committee, and counsel had no business shaping it.

Keeping that line clear also protected the process. An adviser who steers findings turns a statutory inquiry into something else entirely.

Need a committee that can run its own inquiries? Explore our advisory approach, or speak to TGC Legal.

Solution Strategy

The approach was to fix constitution first, procedure second and culture third. Doing them in any other order produces training sessions delivered by a committee that is not lawfully seated.

Work was split into a live matter track and a standing compliance track, so the inquiry was never waiting on policy drafting.

How is a compliant internal committee actually constituted?

Start with the presiding officer. The Act requires a woman employed at a senior level at that workplace. Where no such person exists at a unit, the Act provides for nomination from another office of the same employer.

Then the employee members. Not less than two, drawn from among employees, preferably those committed to the cause of women or having legal knowledge or a background in social work.

Then the external member, from a non governmental organisation or association committed to the cause of women, or a person familiar with issues relating to sexual harassment. This appointment carries a fee and allowances, which the employer bears.

Finally the arithmetic. At least one half of the total members nominated must be women. Term of office does not exceed three years, which means reconstitution is a recurring event and not a one time task.

What should a written inquiry procedure cover?

It should cover service of the complaint on the respondent and the time allowed to reply. It should set how documents and witness lists are exchanged between the parties.

It should record that parties are heard but that legal practitioners do not represent them before the committee. Many committees are unclear on this point and allow representation by default.

It should fix how minutes are taken, who signs them, and where they are stored. Confidentiality under Section 16 has to be built into storage, not just promised in a policy.

It should also address interim measures during pendency, such as transfer or leave, which the Act permits on the written recommendation of the committee.

How were the two offices handled?

Each administrative unit needs a committee available to the workers at that unit. Running a single committee from Kochi for a Bengaluru workforce creates access problems the Act does not intend.

A committee was constituted for the second office, sharing the same external member for consistency of approach across both.

Sittings were permitted by video conference where a member could not travel, with the record kept in the same form as an in person sitting.

A single intake address was published for both offices, routing each complaint to the committee for that unit. Workers should not have to decide the jurisdiction question themselves.

How was the policy rewritten to match the statute?

The old template was set aside rather than edited. Editing a document whose structure does not follow the Act tends to preserve its gaps.

The new policy tracks the statute in order. Definitions, coverage, the committee, complaint, conciliation, inquiry, interim relief, findings, action, appeal, confidentiality and reporting.

Employer duties under Section 19 were written in as commitments with owners against each one. Awareness workshops, display of penal consequences, and assistance to the committee are obligations, not optional programmes.

The policy was then published in a form workers could actually read, with a one page summary alongside the full text.

Systems and Tools Used

Nothing specialised was purchased. What changed was that records stopped living in personal inboxes and started living in a controlled place with restricted access.

How were complaint records kept confidential?

Section 16 restricts publication of the identity of the parties, the witnesses and the contents of the proceedings. Storage had to reflect that restriction in practice.

A restricted folder was created with access limited to committee members. It sat outside the general human resources drive, because ordinary human resources staff have no right to inquiry material.

Physical papers were kept in a locked cabinet in the custody of the presiding officer, with a simple movement register for anything removed.

Email was taken out of the process entirely for substantive material. Attachments forwarded by mistake are the most common way confidentiality fails in practice.

What did the committee use to run sittings?

A standing agenda template was used for every sitting, covering attendance, documents received, submissions heard and the next date fixed.

Minutes were drafted during the sitting rather than afterwards. A record written from memory a week later is a weaker record.

Video conference was available for members who could not travel between the two offices, with the same minute taking discipline applied.

A single case register tracked each matter by reference number, date of complaint and elapsed days against the statutory period.

How was awareness training delivered and evidenced?

Sessions were run in person for each office, in Malayalam and English, because a policy nobody understands is a policy nobody uses.

Attendance was recorded against employee identifiers. Section 19 requires the employer to organise workshops and awareness programmes, and evidence of that is what an audit will ask for.

New joiners were added to the induction pack, so coverage did not decay between annual sessions.

Managers received a shorter separate briefing on what to do when something is reported to them informally, which is how most matters actually begin.

Implementation Process

The work ran across about four months. The live inquiry drove the sequence, and the standing compliance items were fitted around it rather than the other way round.

The first fortnight was diagnosis only. Nothing was changed until the position was understood in full.

How was the existing position reviewed?

The review covered the notification constituting the committee, the policy, any minutes, the complaint file and the correspondence between members.

Each item was mapped against the section of the Act it was meant to satisfy. That mapping produced a short list of gaps rather than a general impression.

Members were interviewed individually about what they understood their role to be. Their answers were candid and revealing, and shaped the training that followed.

The review was written up as a note with findings and options. Management wanted a decision document, not a lecture on the statute.

How was the committee reconstituted without disrupting the matter?

A fresh notification was issued naming the presiding officer, the employee members and the external member, with the date of constitution and the term.

The external member was identified through an organisation working on workplace issues, and the appointment terms including fees were recorded in writing.

Members received a briefing on the inquiry procedure before the first sitting of the reconstituted committee, not after it.

The complainant and the respondent were both informed in writing that the committee had been reconstituted and that the inquiry would proceed on a stated procedure.

How was the inquiry brought back inside its timeline?

All sittings for the full inquiry were calendared at the start, with fallback dates already fixed. Availability was confirmed before dates were published.

A simple counter showed elapsed days against the statutory period at every sitting. Visibility alone prevented most of the drift that had occurred earlier.

Document exchange was given fixed windows rather than being left open, which stopped the pattern of material arriving on the morning of a sitting.

The report to the employer was prepared as the inquiry closed rather than started afterwards, so the ten day period in Section 13 was comfortable rather than tight.

How were the reporting obligations brought current?

The annual report under Section 21 was prepared covering the number of complaints received and disposed, together with the awareness programmes carried out.

It was submitted to the employer and to the District Officer, and an acknowledgement was retained on file. Retaining the acknowledgement is as important as filing the report.

The employer annual report requirement under Section 22 was flagged to the finance team who prepare the statutory accounts. The government also runs the SHe Box portal for complaints, which the policy should reference alongside the internal route.

A recurring calendar entry now carries the annual report, the expiry of the term of office of members, the annual awareness session and a yearly policy review.

Have a matter running with the clock already ticking? Explore how we can help.

Business Results

Results are described here in direction of change rather than in numbers. Outcomes in workplace inquiries turn on evidence and on the judgement of the committee, and figures would suggest a precision that does not exist.

What follows is what the employer and the committee reported after the work closed.

What changed about the inquiry itself?

The inquiry was completed within the statutory period, on a written procedure, with a full record of every sitting and every document exchanged.

Both parties received the same notice periods and the same access to material. That symmetry is what makes a finding defensible later.

The report reached the employer inside the period set by Section 13, and the employer acted on it within the time the Act allows.

Neither party raised a complaint about the conduct of the process. That is a modest outcome, and in this area it is the right one to aim for.

How did the committee change as a working body?

Members now know what the statute asks of them. Before the review, several believed the committee could hear a matter with two people present and decide informally.

Sittings run to an agenda and produce minutes on the day. The presiding officer holds the file rather than passing it around.

The external member has changed the tone of discussion, which was the point of the requirement in the first place.

The committee has since handled a second matter without external assistance, which was the objective set at the start.

What changed for the wider workforce?

Workers at both offices know where a complaint goes. Before this, most would have taken it to a reporting manager and hoped it was handled.

Managers have a short protocol for what to do when something is reported informally, including what they must not do.

Awareness sessions run in Malayalam and English reached people the earlier English only circular had not reached at all.

Reporting has become slightly more frequent, which the employer treats as a sign the process is trusted rather than a sign of a worsening problem.

How did this affect customer audits?

Vendor audit questions on workplace policy are now answered with documents rather than assurances. The constitution notification, the policy, the training records and the filed annual report cover most of what is asked.

One overseas customer had previously left the item open at audit. That item was closed at the next review. Our POSH corporate services case study covers the same audit questions across multiple sites.

Procurement conversations became shorter, because the compliance annexure could be completed without chasing internal owners.

The company treats the file as a living pack now, refreshed each year alongside the annual report.

Facing a customer audit with a policy you have never tested? Read more about our employment contracts and workplace policy.

Lessons Learned

Almost every problem here came from treating the Act as a policy topic rather than as a procedure with fixed requirements and fixed dates.

What surprised the team most?

That a committee constituted in good faith could be defective in three separate ways at once. Nobody had acted carelessly. The template simply did not carry the statutory detail.

Members were also surprised to learn that parties are not represented by legal practitioners before the committee. Several had assumed the opposite.

The annual report obligation was news to everyone in the room, including the human resources lead who had drafted the original policy.

None of this is unusual. It is the ordinary state of affairs in companies that have never had a matter reach the committee.

What worked better than expected?

The external member. Employers often treat that appointment as a formality and a cost. In practice it changed how the committee discussed evidence.

Calendaring the whole inquiry in advance also worked well. Drift is caused by rescheduling, and rescheduling is caused by dates being fixed one sitting at a time.

Running training in Malayalam alongside English reached a group the earlier programme had missed entirely.

Drafting minutes during the sitting removed a task everyone had been avoiding, and produced a better record than any later reconstruction.

What would be done differently next time?

The committee would be constituted correctly before any complaint arrives. Fixing composition during a live matter is stressful and avoidable.

The second office would have its own committee from the day it opened, rather than being served remotely from Kochi.

Policy would be drafted against the statute rather than adapted from a template found online.

Training would begin at induction rather than as an annual event, so coverage does not depend on who happened to be present in a given month.

What should other Kerala employers check first?

Check the constitution notification. Read Section 4 beside it and confirm the presiding officer, the external member and the one half requirement. Our workplace harassment case study shows what a challenge on that ground looks like.

Check the term of office. Members appointed more than three years ago need reconstitution, and many committees quietly lapse this way.

Check whether any annual report has ever been filed with the District Officer, and whether an acknowledgement is on file.

Check that every office has a committee available to the workers who actually sit there. A single central committee is not always enough.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a POSH committee mandatory for every company?

An internal committee is required at every workplace employing ten or more workers under Section 4 of the 2013 Act. Smaller workplaces, and complaints made against the employer itself, are dealt with by the local committee constituted by the district officer under Section 6. The obligation follows the workplace, so companies with several offices usually need more than one committee.

Who can be the presiding officer of an internal committee?

The Act requires a woman employed at a senior level at that workplace. Where no such person is available at a particular office, the presiding officer may be nominated from another office or administrative unit of the same employer. Appointing a junior employee, or a man, does not satisfy the section and leaves the committee open to challenge on composition.

Why must one committee member come from outside the organisation?

Section 4 requires one member from a non governmental organisation or association committed to the cause of women, or a person familiar with issues relating to sexual harassment. The purpose is to bring an independent view into a body whose other members are paid by the employer. The employer bears the fees and allowances payable to that member.

How long does a POSH inquiry have to be completed?

The Act sets an outer period of ninety days for completion of the inquiry. The committee then submits its report to the employer within ten days of completion, and the employer is required to act on the recommendations within the period the Act prescribes. An appeal lies within ninety days. Committees often track only the first of these clocks.

Can a lawyer represent a party before the internal committee?

No. The 2013 Rules do not permit a legal practitioner to represent a party in the proceedings before the committee. Parties are heard themselves. They may take legal advice outside the proceedings, and either side may of course engage counsel for an appeal or for any later court process, but the inquiry itself is conducted without representation.

What is the annual report under Section 21?

The internal committee prepares an annual report covering matters such as the number of complaints received and disposed of during the year and the awareness programmes carried out. It is submitted to the employer and to the district officer. Section 22 separately requires the employer to include the number of cases filed and disposed in its own annual report.

What are the consequences of not complying with the Act?

Section 26 provides for a fine for failure to comply with the obligations under the Act, including failure to constitute a committee or to file the annual report. Repeated default can attract enhanced consequences, including effects on any licence or registration required to carry on business. Practical consequences also arise in customer audits and procurement reviews.

Does the committee have any powers to summon witnesses?

While conducting an inquiry the committee has certain powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, including summoning and enforcing the attendance of a person and requiring the discovery and production of documents. Those powers exist to allow a proper record to be built, and they should be exercised through a written record like every other step.

Can a complaint be settled through conciliation?

Section 10 permits the committee, before initiating an inquiry and at the request of the aggrieved woman, to take steps to settle the matter through conciliation. A monetary settlement cannot be made the basis of that conciliation. If a settlement is arrived at, it is recorded and forwarded, and no further inquiry is conducted into that complaint.

How often should the committee be reconstituted?

The term of office of members does not exceed three years under Section 4. Reconstitution is therefore a recurring obligation rather than a single event. Many committees lapse quietly because nobody tracks the term, and a committee sitting beyond its term invites the same composition challenge as one that was wrongly constituted at the start.

Conclusion

A POSH committee is a statutory body, not a policy paragraph. Everything that went wrong at this Kerala technology employer came from treating it as the latter. Composition did not match Section 4. No written procedure existed, so the record was thin. The inquiry drifted past its window because nobody was counting days. And the annual report had never been filed, in any year, because nobody had been made responsible for it. None of that reflected bad faith. It reflected a downloaded template and an assumption that the topic would never be tested. Once the committee was reconstituted, given a procedure and put on a calendar, it completed the matter properly and has since run another without outside help. That is the practical measure worth aiming for. If your own constitution notification predates three years, or if no Section 21 report has ever reached the district officer, those are the two checks to run this week. TGC Legal advises employers on workplace compliance under the 2013 Act, and you can read more or start a conversation.