As the calendar year comes to an end, there are many compliance submissions and filings lined up through the months of December and January for organisations. The Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) annual report for the calendar year is to be filed by January 31 every year, for the previous year, to the respective district welfare officer.
It is never late for an organisation to file the POSH annual report as it is not an option but a mandate. The Act that mandates this is called the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013, passed after the Nirbhaya incident.
Bhanwari Devi, a dalit anganwadi worker in Rajasthan who was attacked and gang raped on her way to her workplace in 1992, went to court seeking justice. The case was taken up as Vishakha and Others vs the State of Rajasthan and subsequently reached the Supreme Court. The court declared that a set of guidelines are necessary and formulated the Vishakha Guidelines in 1997 to be followed until the parliament passed a law.
Sometimes not all companies file the POSH annual report properly due to the lack of knowledge of the terms. Many reasons are given by companies for not filing the report. And some of them have explanations too.
Reason 1: We have only male employees and no women on our payroll
Any organisation with 10 or more people working together must comply with the requirements of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013 with the constitution of the Internal Complaints Committee (now amended to Internal Committee IC) and the term ‘employee’ is defined as all women working or visiting any workplace as a regular employee, temporary employee, a coworker, contract worker, probationer, trainee, apprentice, visitor, on daily wages, engaged directly or indirectly (contractor), working for a certain remuneration, voluntary or otherwise, terms of employment may be express or implied. It is a protection guaranteed for every woman working or visiting a workplace.
Reason 2: We already have a grievance redressal system in place that takes care of all types of issues including sexual harassment issues.
In the case of Ms G vs Isg Novasoft Technologies, the Madras High Court directed the company to pay Rs 1.68 crore as damages for sexual harassment to an aggrieved woman and added that if the company had set up a committee to inquire into allegations of sexual harassment, the litigation may have been avoided. This implied that the POSH Internal Committee is exclusive to sexual harassment complaints and a must for an organisation to set up with 10 or more employees. And the committee must file annual reports.
Reason 3: We are an educational institute, an evening coaching centre, an NGO, a gym, and a group of self-employed people, and to top it all, we always ‘work from home'.
The ‘workplace’ includes any place visited by the employee/visitor arising out of or during the course of employment including transportation provided by the employer, covers organised and unorganised sectors, government/Private organizations, Hospitals/nursing homes, Sports institutes/facilities and dwelling or house and also includes extended workplaces – office parties, outbound training, conferences, and of course ‘work from home’. The “unorganised sector” in relation to a workplace means an enterprise owned by individuals or self-employed workers and engaged in production or sales or service with less than 10 workers.
Reason 4: We are a startup with fewer than three people.
For organisations with less than 10 people, there is a Local Complaints Committee administered by the District Welfare Office. All such organisations should approach the Local committee for redressal. The relief also covers women working in the dwelling place or house. An appropriate government official has the authority to visit and check the records of the evidence of the implementation of the Act, including the composition of the Internal Committee, the display of information regarding the policy/policies against sexual harassment, Internal Committee (IC) details and records of the meetings. On finding discrepancies, the organisation can be fined upto Rs 50,000 and on repeated offences may even lose the license to operate.
All organisations should file the annual report for the calendar year with the respective district welfare officer specifying the number of complaints received, disposed of and pending for more than 90 days during the year. They should also mention the nature of workshops or awareness programmes conducted against sexual harassment, and the nature of action taken by the employer or district officer.
The POSH Act was further strengthened by linking it to the Company’s (Accounts) Rules 2014 where the employer with 10 or more employees with the exemption of one person company and small company, is bound by law to disclose and include details of the POSH annual report with the details of the Internal Committee composition in the Board of Directors report submitted to the Registrar of Companies.
(The author is a management consultant)