PoSH Act, 2013: Things to Know Before You Submit Annual Report with District Officer

The Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) requires every organization to build a workplace free of sexual harassment and create awareness among employees about their rights under this Act. The Act mandates those organizations with more than ten employees to formulate an Internal Committee (IC). IC will spearhead the organization’s campaign towards a safe workplace.

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Another responsibility that the Act assigns to the organization is to submit two reports every year.

1. As per Section 21 of the PoSH Act, IC should submit an annual report to the employer and the District Officer.

Committee to submit annual report.— (1) The Internal Committee or the Local Committee, as the case may be, shall in each calendar year prepare, in such form and at such time as may be prescribed, an annual report and submit the same to the employer and the District Officer.

2. The second is the Annual Report the employer submits to the Registrar of Companies. This is mentioned in the Section 22 of the PoSH Act.

Employer to include information in annual report.— The employer shall include in its report the number or cases filed, if any, and their disposal under this Act in the annual report of his organisation or where no such report is required to be prepared, intimate such number of cases, if any, to the District Officer.

Since these two sections appear similar to each other and the PoSH Act does not explain much about the reports, many have several questions regarding the topic. This blog focuses on answering a few of them.

What is the purpose of report submission?

Annual Report submission is a measure adopted by the Government to track the degree to which organizations comply to the law.

Can organizations skip filing the report for a year?

As per PoSH Act, failure to submit any of these reports is considered as violation of the Act. This will attract a penalty of INR 50, 000. Repeat offence can result in the cancellation, withdrawal or non-renewal of the license/certificate to conduct business.

According to PoSH Act, what are the details included in the Annual Report by the IC?

An Annual Report should be submitted by the IC to the employer and District Officer every calendar year. The report should include:

1. Number of sexual harassment complaints filed in the year.
2. Number of complaints disposed of.
3. Number of complaints pending for resolution for more than ninety days.
4. Nature of the action(s) taken by the employer and
5. Number of workshops/awareness programs conducted by the employer to increase awareness about sexual harassment at workplace.

Upon receipt of reports from all the companies, District Officer will collate the information and submit a report to the State Government. Hence, the report must be submitted even if the organization has not received any complaints in the year. If the organization has not received any complaints in a calendar year, it can be mentioned using the term Nil for the first three points and NA for the fourth point.

What is included in the Report filed by the employer?

Apart from these common questions that are answered in the blog, IC members may have many other questions like:

• Is there is a template for the Annual Reports?
• What is the deadline to file these reports?
• Who is a District Officer and how can one identify him/her?
• What information should mandatorily be excluded from the report?
• Does the Annual Report require a covering letter? If yes, what should it contain?

eLearnPOSH, a leading provider of PoSH trainings and webinars has created a comprehensive microlearning course on Annual Reporting with District Officer under the PoSH Act. This microlearning discusses everything you need to know about Annual Reports, right from the preparation of the report to its filing. Along with the course, you will also get free Annual Report and Director report templates that you can use. To make use of this PoSH course at a very attractive price, contact us.

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