Handling Anonymous Complaints Of Sexual Harassment Under The POSH Act

The POSH Act stands as a significant legislative shield against sexual harassment of women at workplaces. It sets out a prescriptive redressal mechanism for complaint resolution. This includes inter alia: (a) mandatory formation of an IC (or, 'local committee', as the case maybe) to handle complaints of sexual harassment¹ and timelines for filing and resolution of complaints; (b) an IC's responsibility to conduct fair and impartial investigations; and (c) obligation to maintain confidentiality throughout the investigation process, to safeguard privacy of both the complainant and the respondent.

In the Indian organisational context, in addition to adoption of the mandatory prevention of sexual harassment at workplace policy under the POSH Act, companies adopt several other policies from a good governance and misconduct reporting perspective, which includes policies on whistleblowing, 'bystander intervention', anonymous 'tip' policies and the like. Very often,