Overview of POSH Act 2013

Corporate India Blog - Overview of POSH Act 2013

Today in our quick blog (No. 01/2020–21) we have presented an outlook on Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace.

The provisions are detailed in the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act). The POSH Act particularly aims to reduce and minimize incidents of sexual harassment at workplace against women or men, both. It’s applicable to all office premises, households, etc. where 10 or more employees are engaged. The provisions also cover places where any person travels for work related matters.

The primary requirements for compliance are:-
  • setup Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in the organisation with mandatory expert external member
  • impart frequennt training for awareness of staff members and ICC members
  • annual reporting to District Officer under the POSH Act 2013 and in Board’s Report prepared under the Companies Act 2013
The employer is responsible to organise frequent training programs for the staff and the ICC in order to ensure successful implementation of the provisions of this Act. The fact that the reporting is also required to be submitted with the District Officer every year, makes this law pivotal in ensuring a safe workplace environment in our country. Despite the provisions put down in black and white, our country is still far behind in the race of providing safer work environment for its employees, specifically the female strata. The law alone will not make itself execute unless initiatives are taken to spread awareness about the POSH Act and its compliances. Presently, many companies are not having any ICC in place, leave alone having any formal system of accepting complaints of sexual harassment. The provisions of POSH Act have been as good as they are in the books, without the employers falling committed to them, barring fraction of them who have taken this seriously. In this blog, we may not have the data to show the level of non-compliances by employers / organiations / corporates under the POSH Act but certainly the time is now to act upon it and make the law applicable from books to actual places.

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