The Internal Committee is the obligation. The policy document is not.

Constitution of the Internal Committee

Section 4 requires every employer of a workplace employing ten or more workers to constitute an Internal Committee by written order. The composition is prescribed and is not a matter of managerial discretion. The Presiding Officer must be a woman employed at a senior level at the workplace. Not fewer than two members are to be drawn from among employees, preferably committed to the cause of women or having had experience in social work or legal knowledge. One member must be from a non-governmental organisation or association committed to the cause of women, or a person familiar with issues relating to sexual harassment. Not less than one-half of the total members so nominated must be women.

The external member is the requirement most often missing, and its absence is not a technicality. A committee constituted without one is, in our reading, improperly constituted, and an inquiry conducted by it is exposed on that ground alone before its findings are ever examined. Where a senior woman employee is not available at the workplace, Section 4(2) provides for nomination from another office or unit of the same employer.

Members hold office for a period not exceeding three years from the date of nomination. Reconstitution on expiry is an act that must be recorded; committees that have simply continued past their term are common and are difficult to defend.

Inquiry procedure

A complaint under Section 9 is to be made in writing, ordinarily within three months of the incident or, in the case of a series of incidents, within three months of the last. The Committee may extend the period for reasons recorded in writing where it is satisfied that circumstances prevented timely filing. Conciliation under Section 10 may be attempted at the request of the aggrieved woman, but no monetary settlement may be made the basis of conciliation.

Where the matter proceeds to inquiry under Section 11, the Committee exercises certain powers of a civil court in respect of summoning, attendance and production of documents. The inquiry is to be completed within ninety days. The report is to be provided to the employer within ten days of completion, and the employer is to act on the recommendation within sixty days.

Confidentiality under Section 16 is absolute in its terms, and Section 17 provides a penalty for its breach. In practice we advise that the number of persons with access to the file be minimal and named, that the record be kept out of the ordinary human-resources filing system, and that no summary be circulated to line management.

The annual report under Section 21

The Internal Committee is required to prepare an annual report for each calendar year and submit it to the employer and the District Officer. Rule 14 of the POSH Rules, 2013 sets out its contents: the number of complaints received, the number disposed of, the number of cases pending beyond ninety days, the number of workshops or awareness programmes carried out, and the nature of action taken by the employer.

Where no complaint was received, the report is still due and is filed as a nil report. Employers frequently take the view that an absence of complaints removes the obligation. It does not, and a run of years without a report is precisely what a District Officer's office notices when it does look. Where a company is required to prepare a Board's report under the Companies Act, 2013, a statement on POSH compliance is also to be included there, and an inconsistency between the two documents is worth avoiding.