By S&S Co. Advocates & Solicitors · Published 16 October 2026 · Informational content, not legal advice: see our disclaimer
Most employers treat the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act as settled compliance, a committee formed years ago, a policy circulated once at onboarding, and an annual report filed somewhere in HR's files. The Supreme Court has made clear it does not see the position that way. In Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa, a case that began as one professor's challenge to his own termination, the Court has used its continuing jurisdiction to push every state and, through them, every employer toward active, verifiable compliance rather than paperwork that exists only on a shelf.
The case itself concerned a Goa University professor against whom an Internal Complaints Committee proceeded ex parte after he repeatedly failed to appear, eventually recommending his termination. The Bombay High Court dismissed his challenge, and the matter has since generated a series of Supreme Court directions aimed not at his individual case but at the state of POSH compliance across the country. This guide sets out what those directions require of an employer today.
What the Supreme Court actually found wrong
The Court has repeatedly observed that the POSH Act, more than a decade after it came into force, is still treated by many organisations as a statutory formality rather than a working mechanism. Internal Complaints Committees exist on paper in a large number of workplaces without members who are trained, without a functioning external member as the law requires, and without complainants or respondents being told how an inquiry is actually meant to proceed.
Rather than deciding only the professor's individual appeal, the Court has treated the case as an opportunity to direct a nationwide stock-take. It has ordered state governments and union territories to run compliance surveys of workplaces within their jurisdiction, confirm how many ICCs actually exist and function, and report back within set timelines. Non-compliance, according to the directions, can expose an organisation to regulatory consequences, including authorities declining to renew licences or registrations that depend on statutory compliance.
The She-Box portal and what it changes
She-Box is the Ministry of Women and Child Development's online portal for registering sexual harassment complaints, originally built so that a complainant in any workplace, whether or not an employer has set up a functioning ICC, has a route to file a complaint centrally. The Supreme Court's directions push toward making registration on this portal, and keeping the registered details current, part of what a compliant employer is expected to do, rather than an optional government initiative that most HR teams had not prioritised.
An employer's practical obligation now includes verifying that its ICC composition, the presiding officer, members and the mandatory external member, is registered and accurately reflects who is actually serving, and that this information is something a government compliance survey conducted under these directions would find consistent with what is on record. An employer that registered an ICC years ago and has since changed members without updating the record is exactly the kind of gap these directions are meant to catch.
Why the external member requirement keeps coming up
Section 4(2)(c) of the Act requires an Internal Committee to include a member from a non-governmental organisation or association committed to the cause of women, or someone familiar with sexual harassment issues, specifically to prevent an ICC from being an entirely internal, management-controlled body. In practice, this is the requirement most frequently found missing or filled only nominally, a name added to a policy document without that person actually sitting on any inquiry.
The Court's directions treat a missing or inactive external member as a serious compliance gap rather than a technicality, because an inquiry conducted without one is vulnerable to challenge on exactly that ground, as has happened in multiple reported cases where termination or disciplinary action following a POSH inquiry was set aside for want of a properly constituted committee. An employer should confirm the external member has actually participated in recent inquiries, not merely that a name appears on the constitution order.
The annual report obligation and why it is not a formality
Section 21 requires the Internal Committee to prepare an annual report on the number of complaints received, disposed of, and pending for more than ninety days, which is to be submitted to the employer and, where applicable, forwarded to the District Officer. Many organisations file a nil report year after year without the underlying record keeping to support that figure if ever questioned, which is precisely the pattern the Court's directions are aimed at surfacing through state-level compliance surveys.
An employer facing a compliance survey or audit should be able to produce the annual reports for several preceding years, the minutes of ICC meetings even where no complaint was received, and the training records for members, since the Court has specifically flagged training as an area most committees have never undergone despite the statutory requirement. A report that simply states a number with no underlying file reads, to an auditor who has seen this pattern before, as a figure nobody actually checked.
What a compliance survey actually asks for
Based on how state governments have begun implementing these directions, a typical district-wise survey asks an employer to confirm the date the ICC was constituted, the names and designations of all members including the external member, whether any training has been conducted and when, the number of complaints received in the period under review, and whether the policy has been circulated to employees in a verifiable way, such as acknowledgement records rather than a mere circular.
An organisation with multiple establishments, branch offices, factories, or a workforce spread across states faces a harder version of this exercise, since each location with ten or more employees needs its own functioning committee or, where permitted, a properly constituted Local Committee route for smaller establishments. Treating this as a single head-office compliance exercise, when the obligation is location-specific, is a common and avoidable gap.
Practical steps for an employer right now
Start with a straightforward audit: list every establishment with ten or more employees, confirm each has a constituted ICC with an active external member, and check the composition matches what was last formally notified internally. Where it does not, issue a fresh constitution order rather than relying on an outdated one, since an inquiry conducted by an improperly constituted committee can be challenged on that basis alone regardless of its findings on the merits.
Next, pull together the last three years of annual reports and ICC meeting minutes, even for periods with no complaints, and confirm training has actually been documented, not just scheduled. An employer that can produce this record quickly when asked is in a materially different position than one that has to reconstruct it after a survey notice arrives, and reconstruction after the fact rarely looks convincing to a regulator already primed to look for gaps.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is She-Box and do private employers need to register on it?
She-Box is the government's centralised portal for sexual harassment complaints. The Supreme Court's compliance directions push toward employers keeping their ICC details registered and current on it, and treating that registration as part of basic POSH compliance rather than an optional step.
What happens if our organisation does not have a functioning external member on the ICC?
An inquiry conducted without a properly participating external member is vulnerable to being set aside on a natural justice challenge, as has happened in reported cases. Beyond litigation risk, it is exactly the gap the Court's compliance surveys are designed to identify and report against an employer.
We have filed nil annual reports for years. Is that a problem?
Not by itself, but an employer should be able to support a nil report with ICC meeting minutes and training records showing the committee was actually functioning during that period. A nil report with no supporting record looks, to a compliance survey, indistinguishable from a committee that never really operated.
Does this apply to our branch offices separately, or just head office?
Separately. Each establishment with ten or more employees generally needs its own constituted and functioning committee, or coverage through a Local Committee route where that applies. A single committee at head office does not satisfy the obligation for other locations.
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.
- Sections 4(2)(c), 19 and 21, Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013
- Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa, Civil Appeal No. 2482 of 2014, Supreme Court (compliance directions, 2025)
- She-Box portal, Ministry of Women and Child Development