Workplace Harassment, POSH & Algorithmic Bias

Two things have changed since 2013 and the statute has absorbed both. The first is that the workplace stopped being a place — harassment now happens on a video call, in a project group at midnight, in a direct message from a manager who is technically off duty. The Act's definition is wide enough to reach all of it, and an employer who says 'it did not happen on our premises' is misreading their own obligation. The second is that hiring, appraisal and rostering decisions are increasingly made or shaded by automated systems trained on historical data, and historical data in most Indian workplaces under-promoted women. A model that learns from that record will reproduce it while appearing neutral.

On harassment we move on the statutory timeline, because it is short: a written complaint to the Internal Committee within three months of the last incident, extendable for recorded reasons. Where the organisation has fewer than ten workers, or where the respondent is the employer himself, the complaint goes to the District Local Committee instead — a route very few women are told about. We prepare the complainant for the inquiry itself, which is where most cases are actually lost: it is a quasi-judicial proceeding with a right to cross-examine, and an unprepared complainant facing a company's counsel is at a serious disadvantage. On automated decisions we ask for the criteria in writing. An employer who cannot explain the basis of an adverse decision is in a materially weaker position before a labour authority than one who can.

A properly conducted inquiry must conclude within ninety days and the employer must act on the recommendation within sixty. Where the committee is not constituted at all, or is constituted improperly, that failure is itself actionable and carries a penalty on the employer. Interim relief — transfer of the respondent, paid leave for the complainant, a bar on the respondent writing her appraisal — is available from the day the complaint is filed and is very often the relief that matters most.