How to File a POSH Complaint at Workplace: Step-by-Step Procedure (2026)

Who can file a POSH complaint?

Ask most people who the POSH Act protects and they’ll say “employees.” That’s too narrow.

The Act protects the “aggrieved woman,” defined in Section 2(a), and the definition is deliberately wide. She can be of any age. She need not be an employee at all. A client visiting the office, a customer, a vendor’s representative, an intern, an apprentice, a contract worker, a domestic worker, a probationer, a woman on a daily wage, even a visitor who is harassed on the premises: all of them fall within the Act’s protection. What matters is that the harassment happened in relation to a workplace, not whether she draws a salary from that employer.

The “workplace” itself is broadly drawn under Section 2(o). It covers government and private offices, organised and unorganised sectors, hospitals, sports venues, and any place the woman visits arising out of or during employment, including the transport provided by the employer. Post-pandemic, this reach matters more than ever: a harassing message sent over an official work channel, or conduct during a video call, connects to the “workplace” even when everyone’s working from home.

Now, the honest caveat. The POSH Act protects women only. If you’re a man, or a transgender or non-binary person facing workplace sexual harassment, you can’t file under this Act as it stands. Your routes are your employer’s own service rules and code of conduct, and the criminal law (more on the criminal route below). It’s a real gap in the statute, and one worth knowing before you walk into an Internal Committee expecting relief it isn’t empowered to give.

Can someone file on the woman’s behalf? Yes, in defined situations. Where she’s unable to complain because of physical or mental incapacity, or death, the POSH Rules let a relative, a friend, a co-worker, or a specified officer file with her written consent (or, where she has died, the consent of her legal heir). The law tries hard not to let the complaint die with the complainant’s ability to speak for herself.

What counts as sexual harassment under the POSH Act?

Before you file, it helps to be sure that what happened actually fits the statutory definition. Not every unpleasant interaction at work is “sexual harassment” in law, and knowing the line protects your complaint from being dismissed at the threshold.

Section 2(n) defines sexual harassment through five limbs: physical contact and advances; a demand or request for sexual favours; sexually coloured remarks; showing pornography; and any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. The common thread across all five is that the conduct is unwelcome. That word does a lot of work. It shifts the test away from the harasser’s intention and toward the impact on the woman: what she experienced, not what he claims he meant.

Section 3 adds a further layer by listing circumstances that, if tied to the conduct, mark it out as harassment. An implied or explicit promise of preferential treatment in her employment. A threat about her present or future employment status. Interference with her work or the creation of an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. Humiliating treatment likely to affect her health or safety. This is where the classic “quid pro quo” harassment (a favour for a favour) and “hostile environment” harassment both live.

Think of it this way: the definition is broad enough to catch a leering comment repeated until the office feels unsafe, and precise enough that a one-off professional disagreement won’t qualify. If what you’re facing maps onto any of the five limbs and the environment has turned coercive or hostile, you have a complaint the Act was written for.

Where do you file: Internal Committee or Local Committee?

Here’s where a lot of complainants get stuck at the very first step. Where does the complaint physically go?

The answer depends on the size of the workplace and who the complaint is against. Every employer with ten or more workers must constitute an Internal Committee under Section 4. This is the default forum: if your workplace has an IC, that’s where your complaint goes. The committee isn’t a token body. Section 4 fixes its composition precisely: a Presiding Officer who must be a woman employed at a senior level, at least two other members from among employees (preferably those committed to the cause of women, or with social work or legal experience), and one external member drawn from an NGO working for women’s causes or someone familiar with sexual-harassment issues. At least half the members must be women, and no member can serve more than three years.

That external member matters more than it looks. She’s the one person on the committee who doesn’t draw a salary from your employer, and her presence is meant to guard against an inquiry quietly tilted to protect the organisation.

But what if your workplace has fewer than ten workers? Or what if the person you need to complain against is the employer himself? In both situations there’s no impartial Internal Committee available, so the Act routes you elsewhere. The Local Committee, constituted at the district level by the District Officer under Sections 5 to 7, receives complaints where the employer has fewer than ten workers, or where the complaint is against the employer. If you run a domestic worker’s complaint, or you work in a tiny establishment, or the harasser sits at the very top, the Local Committee is your forum.

There’s now a third door that overlays both: the SHe-Box portal, the Ministry of Women and Child Development’s central online complaints platform. It doesn’t replace the IC or LC. It routes your complaint to the correct committee and lets the government track it. We’ll come back to it under the filing steps.

How to file a POSH complaint: step by step

This is the part you came for. The mechanics are more forgiving than most people fear, but two things trip complainants up more than any other: missing the time window, and writing a complaint too thin to inquire into. Handle those two well and the rest follows.

Step 1: Act within the time limit

Section 9 gives you three months from the date of the incident to file. Where the harassment was a series of incidents rather than a single episode (which it usually is), the clock runs from the last incident, not the first. So a pattern that stretched over a year is still live as long as the most recent incident is within the last three months.

Miss it, and you’re not automatically out. The Internal or Local Committee can extend the period by a further three months if it’s satisfied, for reasons recorded in writing, that circumstances prevented you from filing earlier. Fear of retaliation, medical trauma, a hostile reporting line, the sheer difficulty of naming a senior colleague: these are the kinds of reasons committees have accepted. But the extension isn’t a formality. You have to ask for it and explain the delay, so if you’re already past three months, address the delay head-on in your complaint rather than hoping nobody notices.

The practical reality is that the six-month outer limit is real, and it’s the single most common reason otherwise-strong complaints get thrown out at the door. If something has happened, don’t sit on it.

Step 2: Put the complaint in writing

The complaint must be in writing. Under the POSH Rules, you submit six copies of the complaint along with supporting documents and a list of witnesses. It sounds bureaucratic, but the multiple copies exist so that each committee member and the respondent can be served without delay.

What should the complaint actually contain? Be specific. Name the respondent and your working relationship with him. Set out the dates, times and locations of the incidents, as precisely as memory allows. Describe what happened in each incident, in plain factual language. List anyone who witnessed the conduct or whom you told about it afterwards. Attach whatever you have: messages, emails, call logs, screenshots, medical records, anything that corroborates the account.

Can’t face writing it all yourself? The committee is legally required to help. If you’re unable to make the complaint in writing, the Presiding Officer or any member of the IC (or the LC) must render “all reasonable assistance” to put it in writing. You’re not expected to draft like a lawyer. You’re expected to tell the truth clearly, and the committee is expected to help you get it onto paper.

Step 3: Submit it to the committee, or file on SHe-Box

Hand the complaint to the Internal Committee’s Presiding Officer or any member, or to the Local Committee if that’s your forum. Get an acknowledgement with a date on it. That date matters, because every downstream timeline runs from it.

Step 4: Choose your path, conciliation or inquiry

Once the complaint is in, you have a choice to make, and it’s genuinely yours to make. Do you want the committee to first attempt conciliation, or to proceed straight to a formal inquiry? The two paths are set out in the next section, because understanding the difference is what lets you choose well.

Conciliation versus inquiry: what happens after you file

So the complaint is filed and acknowledged. What now?

Section 10 gives you the option of conciliation. Before any inquiry begins, and only if you request it, the committee may try to settle the matter between you and the respondent. There’s an important guardrail here: the settlement cannot be based on money. You can’t be paid off to withdraw, and the committee can’t broker a cash settlement as the price of closing the complaint. If a settlement is reached, the committee records it, gives copies to both parties, and no further inquiry is held on that complaint. Worth flagging: if the respondent later doesn’t honour the settlement, you can go back to the committee, and it will proceed with an inquiry.

Conciliation suits some situations and badly fits others. Where the conduct was at the lower end (an inappropriate remark, a single lapse the respondent genuinely regrets) and you want an acknowledgement and an assurance rather than a punishment, conciliation can deliver a faster, less adversarial outcome. Where the conduct was serious, or the respondent denies everything, conciliation is usually a waste of time, and you’re better off going straight to inquiry.

If you don’t opt for conciliation, or it fails, the committee proceeds to inquiry under Section 11. This is the heart of the process. The inquiry follows the principles of natural justice, which is a fancy way of saying both sides get heard: you present your account and evidence, the respondent gets a copy of the complaint and a chance to respond and to cross-examine, and the committee weighs it all. For this purpose the committee has the powers of a civil court: it can summon people, require their attendance, and compel the production of documents. And the whole inquiry is meant to be completed within ninety days.

Remember the Goa case from the opening? This is exactly the stage where it went wrong. The committee there treated “natural justice” as an obstacle to speed. The lesson cuts both ways: a complainant wants a thorough inquiry precisely because a rushed one is the easiest thing in the world for a respondent to overturn on appeal.

Interim relief while the inquiry is pending

Here’s a question complainants rarely think to ask until it’s urgent: what happens to me while all this is going on? You’ve filed against someone who may sit two desks away, or worse, who writes your appraisal.

Section 12 exists for exactly this. During the pendency of the inquiry, on your written request, the committee can recommend that the employer take protective measures. It can recommend transferring you or the respondent to another workplace. It can recommend granting you leave of up to three months, over and above whatever leave you’re otherwise entitled to, so that time off to cope doesn’t come out of your own balance. And it can recommend restraining the respondent from reporting on your work performance or writing your confidential appraisal, which removes the most obvious lever of retaliation.

One catch worth knowing: the committee generally can’t order interim relief on its own motion. It acts on your written request. So if you need protection during the inquiry, ask for it, in writing, and be specific about what you need. Don’t assume the committee will read your mind.

The outcome: report, action, and compensation

An inquiry that never ends is no remedy at all, which is why the Act is unusually precise about what happens at the finish.

When the inquiry is complete, Section 13 requires the committee to prepare a report of its findings and give it to the employer (or the District Officer) within ten days. Two outcomes are possible. If the allegation is not proved, the committee recommends that no action be taken. If it is proved, the committee recommends action against the respondent: in most workplaces, disciplinary action in accordance with the service rules, which can run up to dismissal.

The committee can also recommend that compensation be paid to you, recovered from the respondent’s salary. Section 15 sets out what the committee weighs in fixing that amount: the mental trauma, pain and emotional distress you suffered; the loss of career opportunity; medical expenses incurred for physical or psychiatric treatment; the income and financial status of the respondent; and the feasibility of recovering the sum in instalments or as a lump sum. It’s not a token gesture. Committees have recommended substantial compensation where the harm was serious.

Then the clock starts on the employer. The employer must act on the committee’s recommendation within sixty days. This is what makes the POSH remedy bite: the recommendation isn’t advisory mush the employer can shelve. It carries a statutory deadline for action.

A word on the fear that keeps many women silent, the fear of being branded a liar. Section 14 does allow action against a complainant who makes a malicious or false complaint, or produces forged evidence. But the Act builds in a crucial protection: the mere inability to prove the allegation, or the absence of adequate proof, is expressly not enough to treat the complaint as malicious. Losing your case is not the same as having lied, and the committee has to hold a separate inquiry into malice before any action can be taken against you. If you’re complaining in good faith about something that really happened, Section 14 is not aimed at you.

Can you go to the police too? The BNS criminal route

A lot of complainants assume they have to pick one: the internal POSH route or a police case. You don’t. They run on parallel tracks.

Workplace sexual harassment isn’t only an internal-committee matter. Depending on the conduct, it can also be a criminal offence under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (the BNS, which replaced the Indian Penal Code). Section 75 of the BNS covers sexual harassment: unwelcome physical contact and advances, a demand or request for sexual favours, showing pornography against a woman’s will, and making sexually coloured remarks. The first three carry rigorous imprisonment of up to three years, or fine, or both; sexually coloured remarks carry up to one year, or fine, or both. Section 79 of the BNS covers words, gestures or acts intended to insult a woman’s modesty, punishable with simple imprisonment of up to three years and a fine.

If what happened crosses into this territory, you can file a First Information Report at the nearest police station, and you can do it whether or not you’ve filed a POSH complaint. The internal inquiry is not a substitute for criminal prosecution where the conduct is a cognisable offence, and the Supreme Court has been clear that an employer can’t use its internal process to shield a harasser from the criminal law. In fact, your employer has a duty to assist. Section 19 of the POSH Act requires the employer to help you if you choose to file a complaint under the BNS, and to treat sexual harassment as misconduct under the service rules.

Should you always go criminal? Not necessarily. The short answer is that it depends on what you want. A POSH inquiry is faster, less public, and can deliver transfer, compensation and the harasser’s dismissal without the years a criminal trial can take. A criminal case carries the weight of the State and the possibility of imprisonment, but it’s slower and more punishing to sit through. Many complainants run both, using the POSH route for swift workplace relief and the FIR for accountability. If you’re unsure which fits your situation, that’s a good moment to take advice.

If you disagree with the outcome: appeal

What if the committee gets it wrong? What if it clears a respondent you know is guilty, or, on the other side, indicts one on a thin record?

Section 18 gives both parties a right of appeal. Any person aggrieved by the committee’s recommendations, or by the employer’s failure to implement them, can appeal to the court or tribunal specified in the relevant service rules. The window is ninety days from the date the recommendation is communicated. Where service rules don’t provide a forum, the appeal lies as the rules otherwise direct. The point is that the committee’s finding isn’t the last word: there’s a route to challenge it, for the complainant and the respondent alike. That symmetry is deliberate, and it’s why a fair, well-documented inquiry protects everyone.

What if there is no Internal Committee, or the employer stonewalls?

This is the scenario the Goa case exposed on a national scale, and it’s more common than any compliance brochure will admit: you go to file, and there’s simply no committee to file with. Or there is one, but it’s stacked with the employer’s loyalists and stonewalls you.

You’re not stuck. Two things.

First, the forum. If your employer has failed to constitute an Internal Committee, or the complaint is against the employer, you file with the Local Committee through the District Officer, and you can lodge it on SHe-Box, which will route it. The absence of an IC is the employer’s failure, not yours, and it doesn’t extinguish your right to complain. It just changes where you complain.

Second, the consequence for the employer. Section 26 makes non-compliance expensive. An employer who fails to constitute an Internal Committee, or otherwise contravenes the Act, is liable to a penalty of up to fifty thousand rupees. Repeat the default and the penalty doubles, and the employer risks cancellation or non-renewal of the licence or registration required to run the business. Since the 2025 Supreme Court directions, this isn’t a paper penalty: district labour machinery has been tasked with physically verifying whether committees exist, and states have been pushing employers to register on SHe-Box on pain of exactly this fine. An employer betting that nobody will check is making a worse bet in 2026 than at any point since the Act was passed.

Confidentiality and protection from retaliation

One fear sits underneath all the others: that filing will make everything worse. That your name will be all over the office by Monday, and the person you complained against will make your life unbearable.

The Act takes this seriously. Section 16 imposes confidentiality: the identity and address of the complainant, the respondent, the witnesses, and the contents of the complaint and the inquiry, cannot be published, communicated or made known to the public or press. Section 17 backs it with a penalty: a person who breaches that confidentiality, including committee members, can be penalised under the service rules or fined. Layered on top is the interim protection under Section 12 we covered earlier, which is specifically designed to shield you from retaliation while the inquiry runs. None of this makes the process painless. But the law is structured, deliberately, so that coming forward doesn’t have to mean surrendering your privacy or your job.

POSH complaint procedure at a glance

Pulled together, here’s the whole journey against the clock.

Frequently asked questions

Who can file a POSH complaint? Can non-employees like clients or interns file?
Any aggrieved woman can file, and she doesn’t have to be an employee. The Act’s definition covers clients, customers, interns, apprentices, contract and domestic workers, probationers and even visitors, of any age, as long as the harassment relates to the workplace.

Can a man file a complaint under the POSH Act?
No. The POSH Act protects women only. A man, or a transgender or non-binary person, facing workplace sexual harassment has to rely on the employer’s service rules and code of conduct, and on the criminal law, rather than on this Act.

What is the time limit to file a POSH complaint, and can it be extended?
Three months from the incident, or from the last incident where there’s a series. The Internal or Local Committee can extend this by a further three months if satisfied, for reasons recorded in writing, that circumstances stopped you from filing earlier.

Where do I file if my workplace has no Internal Committee?
With the Local Committee, through the District Officer, and you can lodge it on the SHe-Box portal, which routes it. The absence of a committee is the employer’s failure and doesn’t take away your right to complain.

What is the difference between the Internal Committee and the Local Committee?
The Internal Committee is constituted by an employer with ten or more workers. The Local Committee is set up at the district level and handles complaints where the employer has fewer than ten workers, or where the complaint is against the employer himself.

Does the complaint have to be in writing, and what must it contain?
Yes, in writing. It should name the respondent and your relationship to him, set out the dates, times and places of the incidents, describe what happened, and list witnesses and supporting material. If you can’t write it yourself, the committee is legally bound to help you put it in writing.

Can I file a POSH complaint anonymously?
Not truly anonymously, because the respondent has a right to know the case against him and to respond. But your identity is protected from the public and the press by the Act’s confidentiality rules, so it stays within the closed circle of the inquiry.

What is the difference between conciliation and inquiry under the POSH Act?
Conciliation is an optional attempt, only at your request, to settle the matter before any inquiry, and it can’t be based on a money payment. An inquiry is the formal fact-finding process where both sides are heard and the committee returns a finding.

Can I get transferred or take leave while the inquiry is going on?
Yes. On your written request, the committee can recommend transferring you or the respondent, or granting you up to three months’ leave over and above your normal entitlement, and can restrain the respondent from writing your appraisal.

How long does a POSH inquiry take?
The inquiry is meant to be completed within ninety days. The report goes to the employer within ten days of completion, and the employer must act on the recommendation within sixty days.

Can I file a police case and a POSH complaint at the same time?
Yes. The two run independently. If the conduct is an offence under Section 75 or 79 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, you can file an FIR alongside your POSH complaint, and your employer is required to assist you.

What happens if the complaint isn’t proved? Can I be punished for a “false” complaint?
Failing to prove your complaint is not the same as making a false one. Action under Section 14 requires a finding of malice or forged evidence, reached through a separate inquiry, and the Act says lack of proof alone can’t be treated as malice.

Can I appeal if I disagree with the committee’s findings?
Yes. Either party can appeal within ninety days of the recommendation, to the court or tribunal specified in the applicable service rules.

What is SHe-Box, and can I file there?
SHe-Box is the central government’s online portal for workplace sexual-harassment complaints. You can file on it, and it routes your complaint to your employer’s Internal Committee or the relevant Local Committee, while giving the government a record of the case.

What is the penalty on an employer who has no Internal Committee?
Up to fifty thousand rupees for a first default under Section 26. A repeat contravention doubles the penalty and can lead to cancellation or non-renewal of the employer’s business licence or registration.

Conclusion

Come back to where we started. A committee that rushed, denied documents, and produced a finding that couldn’t survive appeal, sitting alongside a Supreme Court still asking, in 2025, whether committees exist at all. Both halves of that picture are a warning, and both point to the same practical truth: the POSH Act is a strong remedy only in the hands of someone who knows how to work it.

So know your forum before you file: Internal Committee if your workplace has ten or more workers, Local Committee or SHe-Box if it doesn’t, or if the complaint is against the boss. Watch the three-month clock and, if you’re late, explain why. Put it in writing, specifically, and ask the committee for help if you need it. Ask for interim protection if the inquiry leaves you exposed. And remember the second door: the criminal route under the BNS stays open in parallel, whatever the committee decides. Used well, this is a law that can move fast and hit hard. The trick is using it well.

This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The POSH Act and its interpretation continue to evolve through judicial decisions and administrative directions; for advice on a specific situation, consult a qualified lawyer.