UNDERSTANDING BASICS OF POSH
A. What is POSH?
POSH is an abbreviation used for ‘The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. This Act was promulgated in 2013 and it extends to the whole of India including Jammu and Kashmir.
The Act has been framed with an intent to prevent, prohibit and redress cases of sexual harassment of women at workplaces.
B. Applicability
This Act is applicable to all types of organizations that have 10 or more employees. It is pertinent to note that the definition of organization includes private companies, public companies, LLPs, partnership firms, proprietary firm etc.
Further employees shall include all of the following categories:
· Full Time
· Part time
· Contractual
· Cleaning Staff
· Interns
Thus, if the organization has 10 or more employees from all or any of the above categories, provisions of POSH shall be applicable. Additionally, it is to be observed that the term “employee” defined under the Act, is gender neutral that means that even in case the company has all 10 male employees the provisions of this Act shall be applicable to this organization.
C. What are the Compliances?
Three major things are required to be ensured by an organization to which this Act is applicable:
1. Implementation of a POSH policy
2. Constitution of a POSH committee
3. Filing of Annual Return
1. Implementation of a POSH Policy
The organization must have a clearly defined policy that should be communicated to its employees. The policy shall encompass the instances that would be treated as ‘sexual harassment’, the modus operandi of filing a complaint, the manner of investigation to be carried out by the POSH committee and the decisions to be taken is cases of sexual harassment. Further, the organization has to ensure that each year it arranges for training session of its employees for sensitizing them towards this issue and also to train the members of the POSH committee. This training is generally conducted by an expert professional on POSH matters.
2. Constitution of POSH committee
The POSH committee shall have atleast 4 members as follows:
· A senior most female employee of the organization who has reasonable knowledge on these matters. She shall be appointed as the presiding officer of the Committee.
· Any 2 other employee members who have reasonable knowledge on this matter. (These could be male members)
· 1 external expert member. This could be an advocate, a CS, or any other professional who has sufficient legal knowledge and background. Also an NGO worker working in matters relating to women is eligible.
At least 50% of the members of POSH committee shall be WOMEN. Please note that where there are no Women working in the organization, this compliance is required to be dealt on case to case basis and expert opinion is required.
3. Filing of Annual Return
POSH law recognizes calendar year and not financial year. Thus after the year end every organization is required to submit a detailed annual return to the district officer. The due date for this is 31st January, each year.
D. Consequences of non – compliance
Non compliance of any of the provisions of POSH law may attract a penalty upto INR 50,000/-
E. Conclusion
It is advisable to every organization to take due regards of compliances under POSH Act and to ensure its timely compliances because it deals with such a sensitive issue. More so, POSH has its genesis in the Indian Constitution and accordingly sexual harassment of a woman is considered as a violation of her fundamental rights of equality and right to life. Furthermore, vide amendment in the Companies Act, 2013 every Company is now mandatorily required to disclose in its Board Report whether it has complied with the provisions of POSH law or not. Failure to do so shall be constituted as a default under the Companies Act and shall be punishable.
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