POSH Policy India | Act 2013, Rule 13(a) & Section 4

A POSH policy is the employer's internal rulebook for the duties Parliament wrote into the 2013 Act. It is also a document the law requires by name: Rule 13(a) of the 2013 Rules, read with Section 19, obliges every employer to formulate and widely disseminate an internal policy for the prohibition, prevention and redressal of sexual harassment. The statute tells you what must happen, but not where your staff should send a complaint, who sits on the committee or what the consequences are under your service rules. The policy fills that gap. It defines sexual harassment by reference to Section 2(n) and the circumstances listed in Section 3(2), extends the workplace to client sites, offsites and transport provided by the employer under Section 2(o), and covers every category of employee in Section 2(f), including interns, trainees and contract labour.

It is a different document from a code of conduct. A code of conduct describes expected behaviour, while a POSH policy sets up a quasi-judicial procedure with statutory deadlines, a presiding officer, an external member and a right of appeal. Nor is it the office order constituting the committee, which is a separate notice the employer must display at a conspicuous place under Section 19(b), together with the penal consequences of harassment. A code of conduct with a paragraph on harassment does not discharge the statutory duty.

The primary source is the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (Act No. 14 of 2013), in force since 9 December 2013. It replaced the guidelines laid down in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, (1997) 6 SCC 241, and the official text of the POSH Act published on India Code is the version to rely on. Enforcement sits with the District Officer under Section 5.

Section 4 requires every employer with ten or more employees to constitute an Internal Committee at each office or administrative unit. A senior woman employee chairs it as Presiding Officer, with at least two employee members and one external member from an NGO or association working on women's issues. At least half the members must be women, and no member may serve more than three years. Smaller workplaces, and complaints against the employer, go to the Local Committee under Section 6. The procedure runs on fixed clocks: a complaint within three months of the incident under Section 9, an inquiry closed within 90 days under Section 11(4), a report to the employer within ten days and action by the employer within 60 days under Section 13.

Reporting runs on two tracks. The committee prepares an annual report for each calendar year under Section 21 and Rule 14, sent to the employer and the District Officer, and the employer must mention the number of cases in its own annual report under Section 22. For companies, the Companies (Accounts) Second Amendment Rules, 2025, applicable since 14 July 2025, require the Board's Report (except for One Person Companies and small companies) to state the complaints received, disposed of and pending beyond 90 days. Most boards record their POSH policy and committee by adopting them through a formal board resolution. Since December 2024, a series of Supreme Court orders has also directed District Officers to survey employers and upload committee data on the SHe-Box portal. Failing to constitute a committee or act on its findings invites a fine of up to fifty thousand rupees under Section 26, doubled for a repeat contravention, with possible cancellation of the business licence or registration.

Strictly speaking, you need a POSH policy from the day you hire your first employee, because Rule 13(a) applies to every employer. The trigger most businesses notice is headcount. Once the tenth person joins, counting interns and contract staff, the duty to constitute a committee applies, and a committee without a written policy has no procedure to follow. Founders usually discover this during due diligence, when investor's counsel asks for the committee order and past annual reports. The next trigger is a new location: a company opening an office in Pune or Gurugram needs a committee at that unit too.

Commercial pressure comes next. Enterprise clients now ask for POSH documentation before onboarding a supplier, and your own vendor contracts should mirror the obligation. A service agreement for contractors working at your premises can require their staff to follow your POSH policy and cooperate with your committee. Without it, you have a duty to act and no contractual lever.

Two edge cases come up often. A team that works mostly remotely is still covered, because a video call, a work trip or a client dinner can each fall within the extended definition of workplace. And an organisation that receives its first complaint with no policy in place is in the weakest position of all: the 90-day inquiry still has to close, and every procedural gap becomes a ground of challenge in a writ petition.

• The scope and definitions clause maps the policy to Sections 2 and 3 of the Act: who is an aggrieved woman, a respondent, an employee and a workplace. It also covers visitors, work travel and virtual meetings, which are the settings where most modern complaints now arise.
• The Internal Committee clause names the Presiding Officer, internal members and external member, records their three-year terms and provides for a committee at each unit. It also records the quorum of three members, including the Presiding Officer, that Rule 7(7) requires for every hearing.
• The complaint and conciliation clause sets out the written complaint, the three-month window under Section 9, the help a committee member must give a complainant who cannot write, and optional conciliation under Section 10, with the express bar on any monetary settlement.
• The inquiry procedure clause follows Rule 7: the respondent receives the complaint within seven working days, replies within ten, and legal practitioners are excluded at every stage. The Act does not say when the 90-day clock under Section 11(4) starts, so the safe reading is to count from receipt of the complaint.
• The interim relief, confidentiality and appeal clause covers transfer or leave of up to three months under Section 12, the bar on disclosing inquiry details under Section 16, and the right of appeal within 90 days under Section 18.
• The disciplinary consequences clause links findings to your service rules. It should be cross-referenced in your appointment letter and employment contract, so that the POSH policy binds every new hire contractually.

Maharashtra makes POSH compliance a condition of night work. Section 13(2) of the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 2017 allows women to work between 9.30 pm and 7 am only with their consent and where the employer provides protection from sexual harassment and transport to the doorstep. Consent is recorded in Form L under the 2018 Rules, which also require strict implementation of the POSH Act. An inspector who finds no functioning committee can treat the night shift itself as unlawful. Mumbai and Pune employers running late shifts should keep the POSH policy and the Form L consents in the same compliance file.

Karnataka regulates night work under Section 25 of the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961. The state's notification of 27 September 2024, allowing establishments with ten or more employees to operate round the clock, made a constituted Internal Committee an express condition. The Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments (Amendment) Act, 2026 has omitted the detailed transport and security clauses of Section 25, but the POSH duties themselves are untouched. Bengaluru employers should keep those transport safeguards in their POSH policy anyway, because a company cab remains a workplace under Section 2(o).

Haryana adds a reporting layer. The night-shift exemptions issued under the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958, as applied in the state, require transport registers, a complaint box and a copy of the annual POSH report to be sent to the Labour Commissioner. For a Gurugram office, the committee's annual report therefore goes to three recipients, not two. The policy should name all of them.

Kerala shows how far the definition of workplace reaches. In Women in Cinema Collective v. State of Kerala (2022), the High Court held that each film production unit is a workplace under Section 2(o)(ii) and must constitute its own committee once it reaches the statutory threshold. Project-based employers across India, from event agencies to construction SPVs, should draft their POSH policy with that reasoning in mind. A single head-office committee rarely satisfies the Act when people work on separate, time-bound projects.

You start by entering the legal name of the organisation, its registered office and every location where people work, along with the total headcount including contract staff and interns. That figure decides whether the policy sets up a full Internal Committee structure or directs complaints to the Local Committee of your district. Next, you name the Presiding Officer, the internal members and the external member, with the start date of each term, so the three-year limit is visible on the face of the document.

From there you choose the complaint channels: a dedicated email address, a physical complaint box and a reference to the SHe-Box portal. You then decide whether the policy extends protection to employees of all genders through a parallel internal mechanism, since the statutory committee hears complaints by women only. The last block aligns disciplinary penalties with your existing service rules and fixes the annual reporting calendar, which follows the calendar year under Rule 14.

The finished POSH policy downloads in Word and PDF, is signed by a director or partner, circulated to every employee and displayed with the committee order. Our other employment and HR templates for Indian employers follow the same drafting logic.

The most expensive mistake is a defective committee. An Internal Committee without an external member, or chaired by someone who is not a senior woman employee, produces findings that courts routinely set aside. The second mistake is treating the policy as a one-off exercise. Members resign, transfer or reach the three-year limit, and the committee quietly becomes irregular without anyone updating the office order. Review the composition every year, before the annual report is due.

Procedural shortcuts cause the rest of the damage. HR teams sometimes run their own fact finding before the committee is seized, or dismiss the respondent before the report is issued, which hands the respondent a strong wrongful dismissal claim. Any action should follow the committee's recommendation under Section 13, and a termination letter aligned with the Industrial Relations Code should cite that report expressly. Allowing lawyers into hearings, or denying the respondent the evidence relied on, breaches Rule 7 and natural justice. Finally, companies often publish figures in the Board's Report that do not match the committee's annual report, and that mismatch is the first thing an auditor will check.