Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013
What most people assume
If sexual harassment happens at work, POSH is the workplace route — for whoever is harassed.
What the law actually says
The 2013 central workplace statute, commonly called the POSH Act, defines its statutory complainant category as an "aggrieved woman." It requires workplaces above a threshold size to constitute an Internal Committee to receive and inquire into complaints under the Act.
Who this applies to
- Women employees (and, for the purposes of the Act, women visiting a workplace) who are sexually harassed at, or in connection with, a workplace
Why it exists
The Act followed the Supreme Court's 1997 Vishaka guidelines, which were issued to fill a legislative vacuum after a workplace gang-rape case exposed the absence of any statutory workplace mechanism for sexual harassment. It responds to a specific and well-documented pattern of harassment of women in Indian workplaces.
Where the asymmetry is
The Act's own complaint category, Internal Committee jurisdiction and defined remedies are constructed around a female complainant. A male employee cannot bring a complaint under the POSH Act's own statutory mechanism.
What this does not mean
That an employer cannot maintain a gender-neutral harassment policy, or that no other remedy exists for a man who is harassed at work. Many employers extend Internal Committee-style processes to all employees as a matter of policy, and general criminal or civil remedies may still apply to the underlying conduct. What is specific is that the POSH Act's own statutory complaint mechanism is written for women.
Safeguards / limits
- Employers commonly extend the same Internal Committee process to all genders as internal policy, even though the Act itself does not require it
- General criminal provisions and ordinary employment/civil remedies remain available for underlying misconduct regardless of the complainant's sex
Ground reality
Most companies’ HR policies are written to sound gender-neutral, which is part of why this gap is easy to miss. The policy language and the statute are not the same thing — a company’s internal choice to hear a man’s complaint through the same process does not change what the POSH Act itself defines as its complainant category.
Why the reader needs to care now
If you are a man in a workplace situation, knowing whether you are relying on your employer’s internal policy or on a statutory right changes how confidently you can predict what happens next, and what your fallback options are if the internal process goes nowhere.