SC widens ambit of POSH, says probe can be initiated at complainant's workplace

THe sublime margaret court has ruled that proceedings below the bar of Sexual torment (POSH) Act can be initiated not only at the department where the accused employee works but also at the workplace of the complainant and at any site visited by the employee in the course of employment, in a judgment that significantly strengthens workplace-safety protection for women.Settling a long-standing legal ambiguity, a bench of justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi rejected the argument that an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) can inquire into a complaint only if it is constituted in the accused employee’s own department.Any narrower interpretation, the court said, would erect fresh “procedural and psychological barriers” for aggrieved women, forcing them to pursue complaints in unfamiliar offices and undermining the POSH Act’s social-welfare purpose.“The aggrieved woman, who has allegedly suffered an act of sexual harassment, would be compelled to file a complaint before the ICC constituted at the workplace of the ‘respondent’,” noted the bench on Wednesday, warning that such a requirement would push women into “alien workplaces” to seek justice. The court stressed that this would defeat one of the Act’s central objectives: ensuring that redressal mechanisms are accessible and safe for women.The judgment came in an appeal filed by a 2010-batch India Revenue Services (IRS) officer challenging the jurisdiction of the ICC at the Department of Food and Public Distribution, where a 2004-batch Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer was posted and where she (the IAS officer) alleged that he (the IRS officer) sexually harassed her on in May 2023 (at Krishi Bhawan in New Delhi) The IAS officer lodged an FIR the next day and then approached the POSH ICC in her own department.As the ICC initiated proceedings and summoned him for a hearing, the accused officer moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), contending that only the ICC under the Department of Revenue -- his own controlling authority, had jurisdiction to inquire into the allegations. The CAT rejected his plea, and the Delhi High Court upheld that decision in June 2023. The officer then approached the Supreme Court, which allowed the inquiry to continue but directed that the final report be sealed pending the outcome of the appeal. The inquiry has since concluded, and the report was shared with the Court in a sealed cover.Also Read | ‘Will open Pandora’s box to blackmail': What SC said while refusing to bring political parties under POSHAt the heart of the challenge was one phrase in Section 11 of the POSH Act: “where the respondent is an employee”. The appellant insisted that this wording meant that an ICC could act only if it belonged to the same workplace where the accused was employed. The Supreme Court, however, undertook a detailed examination of the statutory language and rejected this reading as fundamentally flawed.The court emphasised that “where”, in context, refers not to a physical location but to a situation—a condition under which the ICC must conduct the inquiry according to the service rules applicable to the respondent, or, where no such rules exist, according to prescribed procedures. The provision, the judges held, is procedural and not jurisdictional. It does not tie the ICC’s authority to any specific office or employer.Reinforcing this conclusion, the Court drew attention to the POSH Act’s deliberately expansive definition of “workplace”, particularly Section 2(o)(v), which includes any place visited by an employee arising out of or in the course of employment, including during transit. This broad definition, the bench said, makes clear that Parliament intended to ensure that sexual harassment is actionable anywhere work takes a person. To deny the ICC of the woman’s workplace jurisdiction, therefore, would defeat this legislative purpose and lead to “absurd” consequences, it held.The bench rejected the contention that only the accused officer’s department could take disciplinary action against him, and therefore only its ICC should conduct the inquiry. That argument, the court clarified, rests on a misunderstanding of the POSH scheme. The ICC only undertakes the fact-finding inquiry; its report must then be acted upon by the employer of the respondent under Section 13 of the Act. The fact that the ICC is constituted in a different department does not diminish the sanctity of its findings, which every employer is bound by statute to honour. If an employer disregards an ICC’s report, the aggrieved woman has a statutory right of appeal.Dismissing the appeal, the bench held that ICCs at a complainant’s workplace, and at any workplace visited during the course of employment, have full authority to entertain complaints of sexual harassment, even when the accused employee works in a different department.