Facing Harassment at Work? How to File a PoSH Complaint the Right Way
File a written complaint with your Internal Committee within three months of the incident. Describe what happened, when, and who was involved, with any supporting messages or records. While the inquiry is pending, up to ninety days, you can request interim relief such as a transfer under Section 12. If there is no IC, file with the Local Committee instead.
What the Law Actually Requires
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, generally called the PoSH Act, applies to every workplace in India, government or private, with ten or more employees. That number matters because it is the trigger point: once an organisation crosses ten employees, it is legally required to set up an Internal Committee, usually shortened to IC (some older documents still call it ICC). This is not optional paperwork. An employer who fails to constitute an IC can be fined, and repeat failure can even lead to cancellation of business licenses in some cases.
The IC has to be structured a specific way. It needs a presiding officer who is a senior woman employee, at least two other employee members who have shown some commitment to women's issues, and one external member from an NGO or association familiar with sexual harassment matters. That external member is not a formality. Their presence is meant to reduce internal bias, since everyone else on the committee works for the same employer as the accused.
Filing the Complaint
A woman who has faced harassment at work can submit a written complaint to the IC within three months of the incident. If the harassment happened as a series of incidents, the three months run from the date of the last incident. The law does allow the IC to extend this by another three months if it is satisfied there was a genuine reason for the delay, so a late complaint is not automatically thrown out, but do not count on that extension being granted easily.
The complaint itself does not need to be a legal document full of jargon. State what happened, when, where, who was involved, and whether there were witnesses. Attach any messages, emails, or call records that support your account. If writing the complaint feels difficult, the law allows a friend, relative, or co-worker to write it on the complainant's behalf if she is unable to do so herself.
How the Inquiry Runs
Once the IC receives a complaint, it has ninety days to complete the inquiry. Both sides get heard. The complainant and the respondent can bring a support person, though usually not a lawyer to directly represent them, and both parties can present evidence and call witnesses. The whole process is meant to stay confidential. Section 16 of the Act specifically bars disclosure of the identity of the complainant, the respondent, witnesses, and details of the inquiry to the media or public, and violating this confidentiality attracts its own penalty.
After the inquiry, the IC sends its findings and recommendations to the employer, who is then required to act on them within sixty days. If the complaint is upheld, the recommendations can range from a warning or salary deduction to termination, depending on how serious the conduct was.
Interim Relief While the Inquiry Is Pending
You do not have to wait ninety days to get some breathing room. Under Section 12, a complainant can make a written request to the IC for interim measures while the inquiry is still going on. This can include a transfer of either the complainant or the accused, leave for the complainant of up to three months in addition to whatever leave she is otherwise entitled to, or an order restraining the accused from supervising the complainant's work or writing her performance reviews. These are meant to be quick, protective steps, not something you have to fight hard to get.
When There Is No Internal Committee: The Local Committee
Plenty of workplaces in India still do not have ten employees on paper, or the complaint is against the employer themselves, which makes an internal process pointless. For situations like these, the Act creates a Local Committee at the district level, set up by the District Officer under Section 6. A woman working in an unorganised sector job, a domestic worker, or an employee of a small establishment without an IC can file her complaint directly with the Local Committee, and the process that follows mirrors the IC's timelines and procedure fairly closely.
Getting the Right Help
Every workplace situation carries its own details, the exact timeline, the evidence available, whether the employer even has a functioning IC, and those details change what the right next step looks like. Vaksy can connect you with a verified advocate on the platform who can review your specific situation and guide you through drafting the complaint or handling the inquiry, in your own language.
Filing a POSH Complaint Against Your Boss or Manager
The process doesn't change just because the person you're complaining about is your boss or manager rather than a peer. You still submit a written complaint to the Internal Committee within three months of the incident, or the last incident if there were several, describing what happened, when, and who was involved. What does become directly relevant is Section 12's interim relief: while the inquiry is pending, you can ask the IC in writing for a transfer of either you or the accused, or for an order restraining the accused from supervising your work or writing your performance reviews, which matters a great deal more when the accused is the person who currently does both.
If the complaint is against the employer themselves, or your organisation doesn't have a functioning Internal Committee at all, you can take the complaint directly to the Local Committee set up by the District Officer instead. Seniority on its own doesn't move a complaint to the Local Committee: even against a very senior manager, it still goes to the IC unless that person is the employer, or there's no IC to receive it. Either way, Section 16 keeps your identity, the respondent's identity, and the inquiry details confidential throughout, regardless of how senior the person you're complaining about is.
Get this reviewed for your case. General guides don't know your state, your facts, or your deadline. Vaksy matches you with a verified advocate on the platform who can review your situation and draft what you need, in your own language.