Ask most employees why they haven’t reported something uncomfortable at work, and you rarely hear “I didn’t know who to tell.” You hear something closer to “I wasn’t sure it would actually go anywhere.” That gap, between having a process and trusting it, sits at the heart of most workplace harassment that goes unreported. A case earlier this year at a major company’s BPO facility in Nashik is a useful lens for understanding why, and for what the law actually expects Internal Committees (ICs) to do about it.
Over several months, a group of women employees came forward with allegations of sustained harassment by senior colleagues. The complaints were serious enough that police stepped in, formed a special investigation team, and placed undercover officers inside the facility for weeks to observe day-to-day conduct. Multiple arrests followed. One of those arrested was a senior HR official who also sat on the company’s Internal Committee (IC) – the body every workplace with ten or more employees is legally required to constitute under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 specifically to receive and act on complaints like these.
According to investigators, she had been informed of the harassment more than once and, they allege, did not act on it. Records reviewed by police reportedly showed she was in regular contact with the employees accused of the harassment. Whatever the underlying reason, the outcome was the same: complaints that were specific, repeated, and directed to the right person went nowhere.
What the law builds in for scenarios like this
This is where the case becomes useful beyond its own facts. Section 4(2)(c) of the PoSH Act requires every Internal Committee (IC) to include at least one External Member (EM); someone from an NGO or association committed to the cause of women, or otherwise familiar with issues relating to sexual harassment. Courts have taken this seriously, and rulings have held that an Internal Committee (IC) without a properly qualified External Member (EM) is not validly constituted under Section 4, which can render its findings void. The provision exists because internal members, however senior or well-intentioned, sit inside the same reporting lines and office relationships as everyone else in the building. The External Member (EM) is meant to be the one person in the room with no career stake in the outcome.
The Act also requires at least half the Internal Committee’s (IC’s) members to be women, with a senior woman employee as Presiding Officer (PO). Taken together, these requirements reflect an assumption already built into the law: internal safeguards, on their own, may not be enough. When the very person authorised to handle complaints is accused of ignoring them, it shows why we need other ways to catch what they missed.
Paperwork compliance isn’t the same as a functioning process
PoSH compliance is often measured by whether the documentation exists: a policy, a constituted committee, an annual report filed with the District Officer under Section 21. Section 26 does provide for a fine of up to Rs 50,000 for a first violation, rising for repeat non-compliance, but meeting these requirements on paper says nothing about whether complaints that reach a committee are actually being heard and acted on.
What this means for organisations
Most organisations audit whether their PoSH documentation is in order. Far fewer regularly check whether complaints are moving through the process at the pace the law requires, or whether individual committee members are handling them the way they’re supposed to. That gap is exactly where a case like this one can sit undetected for as long as it did.
For organisations reviewing their PoSH framework, this case points to a few practices worth prioritising, beyond what the law already mandates:
- Treat the External Member’s (EM’s) role as active, not symbolic. Give them visibility into how concerns of sexual harassment are moving through the redressal process, not just a seat during inquiries.
- Build a direct channel for concerns about the committee itself, separate from the Internal Committee’s (IC’s) own reporting line, so employees and IC members alike have somewhere to flag concerns about how the committee is functioning.
- Periodically audit the Internal Committee’s (IC’s) functioning independently of the committee itself, through HR, an external agency, or both, rather than treating the annual compliance report as the only checkpoint.
A PoSH policy and a constituted Internal Committee (IC) are the starting point the law requires, not proof that employees are safe. Whether complaints actually get heard when it counts depends on how deliberately an organisation builds oversight into the mechanism itself. That’s the work compliance on paper doesn’t do, and it’s exactly the work this case shows can’t be assumed away.
To know more about strengthening your Internal Committee (IC) and building an active External Member (EM) framework, explore our PoSH compliance services or reach out to us at hello@serein.in.
