THE Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (‘POSH Act’) is not, on its face, a narrow statute. Section 2(f) defines 'employee' broadly enough to include regular, temporary, ad hoc, daily wage, contractual and apprentice workers, whether employed directly or through an agent. Section 2(o) defines 'workplace' to extend beyond a formal office to any place visited by the employee in the course of employment. The Parliament plainly intended wide coverage.
Yet the Act extends no meaningful protection to women advocates. This is not because the Parliament overlooked them, nor because the text can be read more generously with a little purposive effort. The failure is structural. The Act's entire redressal architecture rests on the figure of an ‘employer’. The Internal Complaints Committee (‘ICC’) must be constituted by an employer. The findings must be acted on by an employer. Penalties for non-compliance fall on an employer. Once the employer is removed from the picture, the machinery has no surface to operate on. Bar Councils and Bar Associations are not, and cannot ordinarily be treated as, employers of the advocates who are enrolled into them. And therein lies the central legal problem.
