Vishaka Guidelines & India's POSH Act — Workplace Sexual Harassment Redress

In August 1997, the Supreme Court of India ruled in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan that sexual harassment at work violates a woman's fundamental rights to equality and a safe workplace, and issued binding guidelines (the "Vishaka Guidelines") requiring every employer to set up a complaints mechanism, in the absence of any specific law at the time.

The guidelines were codified in 2013 as the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, which mandates an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), with at least half its members women, in every establishment with ten or more employees, and sets statutory timelines for inquiries. The Ministry of Women and Child Development later launched the "SHe-Box" online portal to centralise complaint filing.

Evidence on real-world effectiveness is mixed. Between 2017 and February 2020, the SHe-Box portal recorded 539 complaints nationally, of which 164 (about 30%) had been resolved, according to the government's own figures. In December 2024, the Supreme Court publicly criticised "serious lapses" in ICC implementation across institutions, and legal commentators note that compliance remains patchy, especially among smaller and informal-sector employers. The framework is nonetheless a foundational, still-active model that has shaped subsequent Indian gender-based-violence law.

Read the full analysis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Harassment_of_Women_at_Workplace_(Prevention,_Prohibition_and_Redressal)_Act,_2013