India’s law on the prevention of workplace sexual harassment continues to gain traction in spite of the Covid-19 lockdown and employees working remotely. Incidentally, the definition of ‘workplace’ under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 of India (“PoSH Act”) includes “a dwelling place or a house”. While that was primarily meant to cover domestic helpers, it could extend to employees working from home.
While the shift to a virtual workspace has reportedly lead to a decline in the total number of sexual harassment complaints in India1, sexual harassment continues to occur in more subtle ways such as inappropriate messages, calls/texts at odd hours, sexist remarks, taking screenshots without one’s knowledge during video calls etc.2 Considering the lockdown since March 2020, cases relating to PoSH Act have been heard on video conferencing and the judgments have been pronounced virtually, keeping in mind the urgency and gravity of the situation.
Following our previous legal alerts in 2019 and in 2020, we are delighted to share Part 3 of our analysis of some of the recent and pertinent case laws on PoSH Act-related aspects.
The Kerala High Court upheld the principles laid down in its previous judgment3 and opined that sexual harassment at the workplace should start from an express or implied sexual advance or unwelcome behaviour which has a ‘sexual’ tone behind it.4 In the absence of a...
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