Can an Employer Investigate a Harassment Complaint Through Its Normal Disciplinary Process Instead of the ICC?

By S&S Co. Advocates & Solicitors · Published 17 October 2026 · Informational content, not legal advice: see our disclaimer

An employer facing a sexual harassment complaint against a senior employee sometimes reaches for the inquiry mechanism it already trusts, a retired judge or a departmental officer appointed to look into the facts, on the reasoning that the truth will come out the same way regardless of who asks the questions. A Madhya Pradesh High Court ruling in 2026 is a reminder that this reasoning does not survive scrutiny, and that an employer who takes this route risks losing the entire disciplinary outcome on a ground that has nothing to do with whether the underlying allegation was true.

This guide sets out why the Internal Complaints Committee, or the Local Complaints Committee where one applies, has exclusive jurisdiction to inquire into a sexual harassment complaint under the POSH Act, what the Madhya Pradesh case actually decided, and what both an employer and an employee facing this situation should do differently.

The Statutory Starting Point: Why the ICC Is Not Optional

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 requires every employer with ten or more employees to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee, with a specific composition that includes a senior woman employee as presiding officer and, critically, an external member from an NGO or association familiar with issues of sexual harassment. Where a workplace has fewer than ten employees, or where the complaint is against the employer itself, the complaint instead goes to the Local Complaints Committee constituted at the district level under Section 6.

Sections 9 through 11 of the Act set out how a complaint is to be made and inquired into, and the scheme is built around the ICC or LCC as the body empowered to conduct that inquiry, not as one option among several an employer might choose between. An employer's ordinary disciplinary machinery, built for general misconduct, is a different animal with a different composition, different procedural safeguards, and no mandated external member, and the POSH Act does not treat it as an interchangeable substitute.

What the Madhya Pradesh High Court Decided

In Dr. Sajan Kurien Mathew v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others, decided by Justice Ashish Shroti at the Gwalior bench in May 2026, a university had terminated an assistant professor by order dated 31 December 2025, based on findings from a departmental inquiry. Rather than referring the sexual harassment allegation against him to the ICC, the Vice-Chancellor had appointed a retired Principal District Judge as an independent inquiry officer to look into the complaint alongside other departmental concerns.

The High Court held that the university could not bypass the POSH Act's statutory mechanism by substituting an independently appointed inquiry officer for the ICC, and it quashed the termination on that ground. It directed the petitioner's reinstatement and referred the sexual harassment complaint to the competent ICC or LCC for a fresh inquiry under the proper statutory process. The court also clarified, on a related point, that university grievance committees constituted under the UGC's 2023 student grievance regulations are not substitutes for the ICC mechanism either, closing off another route institutions sometimes reach for.

Why 'the Facts Would Come Out the Same Way' Is Not a Defence

The instinctive employer argument, that an experienced retired judge or senior officer would reach the same factual conclusions an ICC inquiry would have reached, misses what the POSH framework is actually built to protect. The mandated ICC composition, including an external member independent of the employer's own hierarchy, exists precisely because an internal inquiry run entirely by people answerable to the employer carries a structural risk of bias that an outside inquiry officer appointed unilaterally by the employer does not cure, however personally credible that individual may be.

The confidentiality obligations under Section 16 of the Act, the complainant's specific procedural rights during an ICC inquiry, and the ICC's own statutory mandate to recommend action under Section 13 are not incidental features that happen to come with the ICC route. They are the actual content of the protection Parliament built into the statute, and none of them is automatically replicated when an employer substitutes its own chosen inquiry officer instead. Treating the two as interchangeable because the fact-finding might land the same way turns a structural, statutory safeguard into an optional formality, which is exactly what the Madhya Pradesh High Court declined to accept.

What Happens to Action Taken on the Wrong Inquiry's Findings

A disciplinary action, including termination, built on findings from an inquiry conducted outside the ICC or LCC framework is vulnerable to being quashed on that structural ground alone, regardless of how strong the underlying evidence against the employee might have been. This is a harsh outcome for an employer that may have genuinely believed it was acting on solid facts, but it follows from treating the ICC's jurisdiction as a condition for a lawful inquiry in the first place, not merely a procedural nicety that can be cured after the fact by showing the result would probably have been the same.

For the employee, the practical argument this opens up is a narrow one: that the inquiry body itself was not constituted or empowered under the POSH Act, which a court can examine and act on without having to re-weigh the underlying factual allegations at all. That is also why this ground does not exonerate the employee on the merits. Quashing a termination for using the wrong inquiry body typically means the employer must restart the process through the correct ICC or LCC if it wishes to pursue the complaint, not that the complaint itself disappears.

Practical Guidance for Employers Facing a Complaint With Overlapping Facts

Where a sexual harassment complaint against an employee overlaps with a separate, genuine disciplinary concern, such as general performance or conduct issues unrelated to the harassment allegation, the safest course is to route the sexual harassment element to the ICC or LCC from the outset and keep any separate departmental inquiry strictly confined to the non-overlapping conduct. Letting a departmental inquiry get ahead of, or substitute for, the ICC process on the harassment allegation itself is the exact mistake the Madhya Pradesh ruling punishes.

This also means an employer should resist the temptation to appoint an outside expert, however qualified, as a shortcut around constituting or convening the ICC properly, even where the ICC's own members seem less experienced than an available retired judicial officer. The statute's answer to that concern is the external NGO member requirement, not a wholesale substitution of the inquiry body itself. An employer unsure whether its ICC is properly constituted, particularly after recent turnover among the external or presiding members, should fix that gap before a complaint arrives, not after.

Frequently Asked Questions

References & Further Reading

The provisions and rulings below were relied on for this guide. The position can change with amendments and later decisions, so check the current text and the latest case law before acting on any of it.

1. Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, Sections 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16
2. Dr. Sajan Kurien Mathew v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others (Madhya Pradesh High Court, Gwalior Bench, May 2026)
3. UGC (Redressal of Grievances of Students) Regulations, 2023