The Illusion Of Safe Workplaces: Why India’s POSH Law Must Move Beyond Paper Compliance

More than a decade has passed since India enacted the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013—the POSH Act. In that time, organisations have become increasingly familiar with the vocabulary of compliance: constitute an Internal Committee, adopt a POSH policy, conduct an annual training session, file the required disclosures and, preferably, report “nil complaints”.

On paper, many workplaces appear perfectly compliant.

But a difficult question remains: does compliance necessarily mean that women feel safe?

The answer lies not in the number of policies framed, but in what happens when a woman actually needs to use them.

In April 2026, allegations of sexual harassment and mental abuse at a major corporate establishment in Nashik prompted an inquiry by the National Commission for Women. Among the concerns that emerged were serious deficiencies in the workplace redressal mechanism. Similarly, allegations of sexual harassment and bullying at a premier legal educational institution had earlier exposed the disturbing irony of an institution teaching workplace laws while reportedly lacking a properly functioning Internal Committee of its own.

These are not merely administrative lapses. They reveal the central weakness in India’s POSH framework today: the distance between compliance on paper and safety in practice.

When Does the Workplace Really End?

The modern workplace no longer begins and ends at the office door.

A woman may leave the office at 10 p.m., travel in a company-arranged cab, attend an off-site conference, stay at a hotel during a business trip or participate in an official gathering outside conventional working hours. The law increasingly recognises this reality.

Section 2(o) of the POSH Act deliberately gives “workplace” an expansive meaning. It includes not only the physical establishment of an employer but also places visited by an employee arising out of or during the course of employment, including transportation provided by the employer.

This distinction becomes particularly important for women working late shifts.

If an employee is travelling in transport arranged by her employer after work, that journey does not automatically become a purely private commute the moment she exits the office building.

It can remain an extension of the workplace, carrying corresponding responsibilities for the employer.

Courts, too, have progressively interpreted “workplace” in light of contemporary working realities. Business travel, off-site meetings and interactions beyond conventional office hours may fall within the POSH framework where there is a sufficient nexus with employment.

This evolution is important because women should not have to choose between professional opportunity and personal safety.

The Problem With “Nil Complaints”

One of the most misleading measures of POSH success is the absence of complaints.

A workplace reporting no complaints may indeed be safe. But “nil complaints” can also mean something very different: employees do not trust the system enough to complain.

Women frequently hesitate because of fear of retaliation, damage to professional reputation, confidentiality breaches, hostile colleagues or the possibility that the complaint will eventually be turned into a scrutiny of their own conduct.

An Internal Committee, therefore, cannot exist merely as a statutory composition on an organisational chart.

Its members must understand principles of natural justice, confidentiality, trauma-sensitive inquiry and the distinction between workplace misconduct and criminal proceedings. They must also possess the independence to act fairly even when allegations concern senior management.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised that implementation of the POSH Act is not an empty formality. In Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa, the Court highlighted serious gaps in implementation and reinforced the obligation of institutions to ensure properly constituted and functional complaint mechanisms.

The real test of an Internal Committee is not whether it exists

It is whether an employee trusts it enough to knock on its door.

Safety Cannot Begin Only After Harassment Occurs

The POSH Act is often treated primarily as a complaint-redressal statute. But a safe workplace requires something more fundamental: prevention.

This becomes particularly relevant in sectors such as IT, BPO, healthcare, hospitality and media, where women routinely work beyond conventional hours.

Employer-arranged transport, verified drivers, GPS monitoring, emergency escalation systems, background checks and responsive control rooms are not peripheral administrative arrangements. They form part of a broader duty to create a safe working environment.

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions framework similarly reflects an important shift in legal philosophy. Historically, women were sometimes restricted from night work in the name of protection. The modern approach should be the opposite: do not restrict women’s opportunities—make workplaces safer so that women can access those opportunities equally.

A woman working late should not have to calculate whether ambition is worth the risk of travelling home.

From Shakti To Structural Change

While working on our book, Shakti, which engages with the broader question of women’s dignity, safety and empowerment, one theme repeatedly became clear to me: women do not need protection merely in theory; they need systems that work when they are most vulnerable.

A beautifully drafted policy cannot help a woman who does not know whom to approach.

An Internal Committee cannot protect her if its members are untrained or inaccessible.

A mandatory annual workshop achieves little if employees treat it as another presentation to sit through.

And a law cannot transform workplaces if organisations see compliance as an annual checklist rather than an everyday institutional responsibility.

The next phase of POSH implementation must therefore move from formal compliance to institutional accountability.

That need remains strikingly relevant even thirteen years after the enactment of the law. On 17 July 2026, the National Commission for Women organised a two-day National Awareness Programme on the POSH Act at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, bringing together government officials, legal experts, representatives of Internal and Local Committees, civil-society organisations and other stakeholders. A practical booklet on inquiry procedures for Internal and Local Committees was also released, while technical sessions addressed the rights of complainants and respondents and the proper handling and inquiry of complaints.

The significance of such an initiative, more than a decade after the law came into force, cannot be overlooked. It demonstrates that awareness, capacity-building and correct implementation remain continuing challenges. A law may be comprehensive in its drafting, but its effectiveness ultimately depends upon whether those entrusted with enforcing it understand their responsibilities and whether those it seeks to protect know—and trust—the remedies available to them.

Employers should periodically audit the functioning—not merely the existence—of Internal Committees. Members must receive meaningful and continuous training. Employees, including contractual and temporary workers, must know how and where to complain. Anti-retaliation mechanisms must be strengthened so that a complainant does not suffer professionally merely for invoking her statutory rights.

The Government’s SHe-Box platform is another important attempt to improve access to complaint mechanisms. But technology, training and regulation can only go so far.

The most difficult reform is cultural.

Organisations must stop treating a complaint as a reputational threat and begin treating it as a test of institutional integrity. A woman who raises a grievance should not become “the problem”. Nor should an organisation measure its success merely by how few complaints appear in its annual report.

The true measure is whether employees believe they can speak without fear—and whether, when they do, the system responds with fairness, confidentiality and seriousness.

The POSH Act was never meant to be a decorative policy uploaded on a company website. It was enacted so that women could enter workplaces, pursue careers, travel for assignments, work late when required and participate fully in professional life without having to silently negotiate harassment as the price of ambition.

India does not necessarily need another workplace-safety law.

It needs the laws already in existence to become lived realities.

Only when employers move beyond checklists, Internal Committees become genuinely independent and trusted, regulators demand meaningful accountability, and workplace culture stops rewarding silence will the promise of POSH be fulfilled.

Until then, the “safe workplace” risks remaining exactly what it should never be—a welldrafted illusion.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of Outlook India.