Authored By: Rajmohan Roy
Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College
Introduction
In March 2026, the TCS Nashik case made national headlines and sparked a massive public outcry when allegations of pervasive sexual harassment, psychological manipulation and attempted force conversion came to light[1]. The surfacing of the allegations eight years after the #MeToo movement and thirteen years after a dedicated statute was implemented concerning workplace harassment-The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, prohibition and Redressal) Act,2013(POSH Act) raises serious concerns about the POSH act, its implementation and enforcement.
The POSH Act of 2013 was formed on the basis of the directions issued by the Supreme Court in the landmark judgement of Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan. In this judgement, The Supreme Court recognised workplace sexual harassment as a gross violation of human rights and a breach of a woman’s fundamental right to equality, life and liberty under Articles 14,15 and 21 of the Indian Constitution.[2] Moreover, the guidelines made employers and management duty bound to prevent sexual harassment and provide a safe hostile free working environment.
The Vishaka[3] guidelines gave birth to the Internal complaints committee (ICC) as the primary forum for adjudicating workplace sexual harassment complaints.
The ICC is not a court, it is a committee constituted within the very organisation whose conduct is in question. The ICC is appointed by an employer who may be the respondent or may have institutional loyalties to the respondent. This article argues that the ICC as presently structured is constitutionally and structurally incapable of delivering impartial justice and advocates for legislative reform, which is urgently required to establish a genuinely independent adjudicatory mechanism for workplace sexual harassment disputes in India.
This article proceeds as follows Section II sets out the legal framework governing the ICC under the POSH Act, Section III analyses the leading judicial decisions and recent cases that have exposed the Act’s structural failures. Section IV presents a critical evaluation of the structural deficiencies in the ICC mechanism. Section V examines the comparative approaches adopted by the United Kingdom and United States. Section VI proposes reforms directed at correcting those deficiencies.
The Legal Framework
The POSH act defines sexual harassment as any unwelcome sexually determined behaviour, whether direct or implied. This includes physical contact and advances, demands for sexual favours, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography and any other unwelcome physical verbal, or nonverbal conduct of a sexual nature.[4]
The primary form of redressal under the act is the ICC. The Section 4 and Section 6 of the Act mandates that every employer, employing 10 or more workers must constitute an ICC at each branch or office.[5]
Composition of the ICC
Section 4(2) prescribes the ICC’s composition. The committee must consist of a Presiding officer who must be a woman employed at a senior level in the organisation, at least two members from amongst employees preferably committed to the cause of women or having experience in social work or legal knowledge and one external member from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) or association committed to the cause of women.
All the members aforementioned are appointed by the employer. The act does not prescribe any independent appointment mechanism. Therefore, The ICC owes its very constitution to the discretion of the employer, notwithstanding that there is a possibility that the complaints might be lodged against the employer itself or against employee’s acting under the employer’s authority.
Procedure and Powers
According to the Section 11 of the POSH Act 2013, the ICC is vested with the powers of a civil court for the purposes of summoning witnesses and requiring the production of documents. The ICC is required to complete its enquiry within 90 days and submit a report to the employer, the employer is then obligated to act upon the recommendations within 60 days.[6] Although the act provides for an appeal against the recommendations of the internal committee, The astonishing thing is that the appellate mechanism is situated within the employer’s institutional framework rather than before an independent judicial body. Furthermore section 10 authorises The Internal Committee to undertake conciliation if such request is made by the aggrieved woman prior to the commencement of a formal inquiry.
Thus, the very body that participates in facilitating a settlement, may also assume the role of an investigator and adjudicator. Due to the amalgamation of conciliatory and adjudicatory functions, further concerns are being voiced concerning procedural impartiality and the appearance of fairness.
III. Case Law Analysis
While the Vishaka guidelines were groundbreaking in theory, many organizations treated them as mere simple suggestions. This led to poor implementation in practice. Years later, the 2012 Supreme Court case Medha Kotwal Lele v. Union of India exposed this failure and urged the government to take stronger legislative measures.[7] This pushed the Indian Parliament to pass the POSH act in 2013, officially turning the guidelines into law.
The court directed that all states and Union territories must enact rules to implement the Vishaka guidelines and that complaints committees must be functional and accessible. The court directed that all states and Union territories must enact rules to implement the Vishaka guidelines and that complaints committees must be functional and accessible. The ruling revealed the deep chasm between legal expectations and reality. Even after more than fifteen years since the guidelines were introduced it was observed that, many areas in the country still had ineffective redressal systems.
The TCS Nashik Case:
The recent, harrowing case of sexual harassment at TCS Nashik in 2025 involved claims of widespread harassment, psychological pressure, and professional misconduct in a Tata Consultancy Services BPO unit in Nashik, Maharashtra[8]. A fact-finding inquiry by the National Commission for Women concluded that the facility had a toxic work environment and no real compliance with the POSH act. It characterized the failures as a systemic organizational issue, not just isolated instances.
The breakdown of the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in this case was severe. The NCW report stated that there were no signs or posters displaying the requirements for POSH compliance.[9] There was no board listing the committee members and their contact information. Additionally, a senior HR official on the POSH committee was arrested for allegedly ignoring harassment complaints despite being part of the grievance system.
This is not just a procedural issue; it indicates a structural failure. The very body set up to protect complainants is accused of taking part in the actions it was meant to stop. The NCW also found that employees faced active discouragement from reporting abuse due to fears of career consequences, including transfers and termination. This made the ICC mechanism not only inadequate but also hostile to complainants, rendering it ineffective.
The fact that a corporation as gargantuan as the TCS could produce an ICC that allegedly abetted the very harassment it was designed to address confirms the structural problems lies not in the quality of individual employers but into the design of the statute itself.
While the Vishaka guidelines were revolutionary on paper they were largely treated as mere suggestions by many organisations resulting in poor real-world implementation. Years later, the 2012 Supreme Court case of Medha Kotwal Lele v. Union of India highlighted this failure and directed the government to take stricter legislative action. This ultimately pushed the Indian Parliament to enact the POSH act in 2013 effectively adopting the guidelines into a formal statutory law.
The judgement revealed the deep chasm that lies between statutory aspiration and ground level reality as even after more than fifteen years of the Vishaka guidelines the redressal machinery remained largely inoperative across much of the country.
Critical Evaluation
Employer appointment
The most fundamental deficiency of the ICC is that its members are appointed entirely by the employer. Section 4 (2)(a) requires only that the presiding officer be a woman employed at a senior level; it imposes no requirement of independence from the employer’s management or from the respondent.
An ICC constituted at the pleasure of an employer has an obvious structural incentive to protect the employer’s institutional interests. Where the respondent is a senior employee the reputational and financial consequence of a finding against him in Litigation, public disclosure or senior level dismissal may significantly affect the employer’s business operations. The TCS Nashik case demonstrates the extreme end of this spectrum Where a committee member allegedly participated in active abetment.
So, the requirement of an external NGO member does not adequately cure this deficiency as the external is outnumbered within the committee and is herself appointed by the employer.
The Act prescribes no criteria for the selection of external members beyond the broad requirement that the NGO be committed to the cause of women. Employers retain the discretion to appoint external members who are sympathetic to management interests or who lack the professional competence to conduct a rigorous inquiry.
Vagueness in Branch Level compliance
The Act’s requirement to constitute a separate ICC for every branch employing 10 or more workers generate significant practical difficulty for organisations with distributed operations.[10]
The statute does not address how an ICC should be constituted in a branch that employs fewer than three women or that employs women only on a temporary contractual or trainee basis. The requirement of a female presiding officer from a senior level becomes structurally impossible to satisfy in branches where no woman holds a senior position. This ambiguity has led to widespread interpretive inconsistency with organisations constituting committees in ways that are formally compliant but functionally inadequate.
The Conciliation Paradox
The Section 10’s conciliation mechanism places the ICC in a conflict of roles.
Conciliation requires a neutral third party who facilitates negotiated settlement without forming a view on the merits. Adjudication requires a decision maker who evaluates evidence and makes findings. The POSH Act assigns the ICC both functions in the same complaint[11]. A committee that has overseen a conciliation attempt and heard both parties in an informal, settlement-oriented context cannot later decide the same dispute with the needed appearance of impartiality. This design flaw has no equivalent in Indian civil procedure or administrative law, which maintain a strict separation between mediation and adjudicatory functions.
The Compliance Crisis
The structural deficiency identified above is compounded by the systemic failure of implementation. A 2015 report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry revealed that only 64% of Indian companies and 75% of multinational companies operating in India established ICCs as required by law. [12]
The enforcement mechanism under this act is inadequate to address this non-compliance. Section 26 allows for monetary penalties and cancellation of licenses. However, enforcement relies on the district officer receiving the mandatory annual reports that employees must submit. In practice, many ignore this reporting obligation. As a result, a significant number of working women in India remain without an effective redress mechanism, despite the existence of a law that claims to provide one.
Comparative perspectives
The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom’s approach under the Equality Act 2010 uses a different institutional model. Instead of requiring employers to set up internal committees for handling complaints, the UK framework assigns this role to the employment tribunal, an independent body that includes professional judges and members from employer and employee groups.[13] Employers are responsible for harassment by their employees, unless they can prove they took reasonable steps to prevent it.[14] The UK model keeps internal grievance handling, which can be informal and led by the employer, separate from adjudication, which is the sole responsibility of an independent external forum. This separation makes sure that a worker’s ability to complain is never tied to an employer’s committee deciding if they have been mistreated by an employee.
The United States
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace constitutes unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and is regulated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which is an independent federal agency with investigative and enforcement powers.[15]
Before a Complainant may file a civil action in Federal Court, they must first submit a complaint to the EEOC. The EEOC is structured independently of the employer and has the authority to investigate, offer to mediate, and as appropriate, will file a lawsuit on the complainant’s behalf.[16]
Both the US and UK Models have one very important structural characteristic that is not present in the Indian POSH law; the adjudicatory function is exercised by a body that is independent of the employer. By placing the adjudicatory function in an employer-controlled body, the Indian legislature has created an anomaly when judged by international standards. As shown in Section 4, the result is systematic injustices.
Conclusion and recommendations
Hence, this article argues that the ICC under the POSH Act of 2013 has fundamental structural flaws. The employer’s unchecked power to appoint members, the lack of meaningful independence standards, the merging of conciliation and adjudication in one body, ongoing confusion in branch-level compliance, and the persistent failure to enforce rules create a system that cannot consistently provide fair justice. The TCS Nashik case shows this clearly. In this instance, the NCW found no POSH compliance, and a committee member is accused of supporting the very harassment the ICC was meant to address. Thus, this cannot be labelled as an isolated incident, it reflects the neglected and unattended problems in a flawed structure.
These issues are not just minor defects. They arise from a legislative choice to place adjudication within the employer’s organizational setup. This choice contradicts the constitutional guarantees established in Vishaka and the institutional models used in similar jurisdictions.
This article proposes three reforms. First, the adjudication function currently handled by the ICC should be transferred to an independently constituted district-level tribunal or a substantially reformed Local Complaints Committee. This committee should have members appointed independently and must meet professional qualifications defined by law. The ICC should only serve as an internal grievance body with a supportive, non-adjudicatory role.
Second, the conciliation process under Section 10 should be clearly separated from the inquiry process and assigned to a different, independent body. This separation aligns with the distinction between mediation and adjudication found in Indian civil procedure.
Third, and most urgently due to the findings in the TCS Nashik case, the enforcement system must be strengthened. This includes requiring regular independent external audits of POSH compliance in all workplaces over a set size. Audit reports should be sent directly to the District Officer, not filtered through the employer. The POSH Act makes a strong legislative commitment to the dignity and equality of women in the workplace. That commitment is undermined by a system that puts the handling of harassment complaints in the hands of the institution being complained about. Reform is not merely desired; it is constitutionally necessary.
Bibliography
Statutes:
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013.
Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), Discipline and Grievances at Work: The Acas Guide (2024) ch 1.
Equality Act 2010, s 109(4).
Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 USC sec 2000e-2.
Cases:
Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (1997)6 SCC 241.
Medha Kotwal Lele & Ors v Union of India & Ors AIRONLINE 2012 SC 632.
Articles and Reports:
Ankit Purohit,Navtika Singh Nautiyal ans Sakshita Anand,’Laws Relating to Sexual Harassment at Workplace:The Need for Gender neutrality’(Academia.edu)accessed 20 June 2026.
National Commission for Women, Report of Fact Finding Committee of NCW In TCS, Nashik Case (11 May 2026
Websites:
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Overview https://www.eeoc.gov/overview accessed 21st June 2026.
Journals:
Sharma K, “Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace in India: An Ubiquitous Hazard,” vol 22 (IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 2017) <https://www.iosrjournals.org>
[1] Rohit Hooda, Aditya Talwar, and Amity Law School, Amity University, Noida, “SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT WORKPLACE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF LAWS AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES,” vol 21.
[1] National Commission for Women, Report of Fact Finding Committee of NCW In TCS, Nashik Case (11 May 2026)1.
[2] Ankit Purohit,Navtika Singh Nautiyal ans Sakshita Anand,’Laws Relating to Sexual Harassment at Workplace:The Need for Gender neutrality’(Academia.edu)accessed 20 June 2026.
[3] Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (1997)6 SCC 241
[4] The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013, s2(n)
[5] Ibid s6
[6] The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013,s11(4)
[7] Medha Kotwal Lele & Ors v Union of India & Ors AIRONLINE 2012 SC 632
[8] National Commission for Women, Report of Fact Finding Committee of NCW In TCS, Nashik Case (11 May 2026)1-2.
[9] Ibid
[10] Sharma K, “Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace in India: An Ubiquitous Hazard,” vol 22 (IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 2017) <https://www.iosrjournals.org>
[11] Sharma K, “Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace in India: An Ubiquitous Hazard,” vol 22 (IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 2017) <https://www.iosrjournals.org>
[12] Rohit Hooda, Aditya Talwar, and Amity Law School, Amity University, Noida, “SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT WORKPLACE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF LAWS AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES,” vol 21.
[13] Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), Discipline and Grievances at Work: The Acas Guide (2024) ch 1.
[14] Equality Act 2010, s 109(4).
[15] Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 USC sec 2000e-2.
[16] Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Overview https://www.eeoc.gov/overview accessed 21st June 2026.
