This note is commentary for compliance purposes, not legal advice, and does not suggest any outcome for any party. {note.pdf && Read the full judgment: download the PDF.}
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This note is commentary for compliance purposes, not legal advice, and does not suggest any outcome for any party. {note.pdf && Read the full judgment: download the PDF.}
[ARTICLE BODY: paste LinkedIn copy, to be restructured as What happened → What it means → What it changes for your IC → Practical checklist. Hook lines, emoji, hashtags, and follow/DM CTAs will be stripped.]
A college disciplinary inquiry ended in dismissal, after hearings the respondent could not meaningfully attend, on timelines no one could defend. The Supreme Court set the dismissal aside for breach of natural justice and remitted the matter, then widened its lens to the state of PoSH implementation across public and private institutions.
Haste is as fatal as delay: an inquiry that denies a fair opportunity to be heard cannot stand, however serious the allegations. And the machinery of the Act (committees, training, returns) must actually exist and actually work.
However salutary this enactment may be, it will never succeed in providing dignity and respect that women deserve at the workplace unless and until there is strict adherence to the enforcement regime and a proactive approach by all the State and non-State actors.
The directions instruct employers to verify committee constitution, publish committee details, and, pointedly, to familiarise members with the manner in which an inquiry ought to be conducted, from receipt of complaint to report. A committee that cannot show this on paper is now visibly non-compliant, not quietly so.
An officer of one Government department alleged sexual harassment by an officer of another. She complained to the Internal Committee constituted at her own department. The respondent challenged jurisdiction: the committee empowered to inquire, he argued, could only be the one at his workplace. The Tribunal and the High Court rejected the challenge; the Supreme Court agreed with them.
The phrase ‘where the respondent is an employee’ as contained in Section 11 of the POSH Act, cannot be interpreted to mean that ICC proceedings against a ‘respondent’ may only be instituted before the ICC constituted at the workplace of the ‘respondent’.
The Court anchored the conclusion in the breadth of the Act's definition of workplace, protection follows the woman's work, not the respondent's employment.
A committee can no longer decline a complaint because the respondent sits elsewhere, in another department, another group company, or a vendor. Your IC takes the complaint, conducts the fact-finding inquiry, and transmits its report; the respondent's employer must cooperate with the inquiry and act on the report. Multi-entity campuses, client-site work, and deputation arrangements all now have a clear answer to “who hears this?”
Is an employee's daily commute a “workplace” under the POSH Act? The Bombay High Court has just answered, and every IC should take note.
In Siddhesh Pradeep Satpute v. State Bank of India (16 June 2026), an incident was alleged in a shared autorickshaw during an employee's ordinary commute. The employer's Internal Committee inquired and found against him. The High Court set that order aside.
Why? Section 2(o)(v) covers transport as a “workplace” only when it is provided by the employer. A public or self-arranged commute generally is not. The Court expressed no view on the merits, the inquiry simply happened in the wrong forum.
Whether the incident occurred at a “workplace” is a jurisdictional fact. Decide it first, record the finding, and only then proceed with the inquiry.
1. Employers: your cab and shuttle arrangements are covered. Who arranges the transport is what matters.
2. IC members: open every inquiry with a recorded jurisdiction finding. How does your IC document this step?
“It happened at the client's office, so our IC can't do anything, right?”
A manager heard this from a team member last week. She'd been made deeply uncomfortable during an offsite visit, and assumed that because it wasn't inside her own office, she had nowhere to go.
She was wrong, and this misconception silences far too many people. Under the POSH Act, “workplace” (Section 2(o)) includes any place an employee visits in the course of employment: client sites, offsites, work travel, even employer-arranged transport.
In December 2025, the Supreme Court (Dr Sohail Malik v. Union of India) reaffirmed this wide reading. Her own organisation's Internal Committee can take up the inquiry even when the respondent belongs to another department or entity, whose employer must cooperate under Section 19(f).
The manager listens with empathy, and does not investigate it himself. He connects her to the IC promptly, without pressure either way. She can then file a written complaint within three months of the incident, the IC may extend by another three for recorded reasons.
A safe workplace doesn't end at your office door. Neither does the law.
The person who harassed you works at a different company. Does that leave you with no way to complain?
It doesn't.
In Dr Sohail Malik v. Union of India (Supreme Court, December 2025), the Court read the POSH Act the way it was meant to be read, as social-welfare legislation that protects the woman, not one that shields a harasser behind an org chart.
1. “Workplace” is defined broadly. Under Section 2(o) it reaches any place you visit in the course of your work, not just your own office floor.
2. The Internal Committee at the aggrieved woman's workplace can inquire into her complaint even when the respondent sits in a different department or organisation. Section 11 doesn't lock the process to the respondent's own IC.
3. The respondent's employer has a duty to cooperate and share information with that IC (Section 19(f)).
A vendor, a client, someone from another office, none of these is a loophole. Build your redressal process so a cross-organisation complaint isn't quietly turned away at the door.