GENDER, POWER, AND THE WORKPLACE : A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAW UNDER THE POSH ACT, 2013

Sexual harassment at the workplace is fundamentally a structural problem of gender power hierarchies that had long determined the organization of labor in India. The most significant legislative response by India to sexual harassment has been the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, known colloquially and legally as the POSH Act. Arising from two decades of judicial pronouncements after the famous Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan ruling, the POSH Act seeks to provide mechanisms of prevention, complaint, and redressal of sexual harassment. However, a decade into the POSH Act's implementation, institutional data, empirical research, and case reports suggest profound systemic cracks in its implementation, such as the stifling of complaints, functioning or non-functioning ICs, marginalization of informal sector workers, and pervasive power imbalances during the processes of complaint and dispute resolution. The present paper undertakes a holistic examination of the POSH Act through the intersecting perspectives of gender theory, power politics, and legal realism, following its legal lineage from Vishaka to the statute, assessing the functioning of the Act and its architecture, and suggesting ways in which law, policy, and workplace culture can be reformed.