Raising the Curtain on PoSH Inquiries | Part 2

In our last series on Raising the Curtain on PoSH Inquiries, we covered the role courts play in appeals from Internal Committee Investigations

Many people assume that Internal Committees in India are unfairly biased towards women, and they often take decisions with little or no evidence. They assume the IC should only reach findings when the evidence clearly proves what happened. That instinct is understandable. PoSH findings can affect careers, workplace relationships, reputations, and future opportunities. When we look at criminal law, this impression is reinforced: that serious allegations require proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Yet Internal Committees operate differently. They routinely make findings in situations where certainty may never be available.

How can an IC fairly decide a complaint when there is no conclusive proof of what happened? This article explores why the law adopts a different approach.

Why Certainty Feels Fair—And Why It Creates A Problem For Internal Committees
Most people associate fairness with certainty, particularly when allegations may affect careers and reputations. When you set a standard for evidence and you make X the decision maker, then you are essentially determining how X will do their job.
Internal Committees are often required to assess workplace interactions that occurred in private, sometimes months earlier, with little documentary or witness evidence. If they were required to prove allegations beyond reasonable doubt, many complaints would become impossible to decide, not because they lacked merit, but because the evidence required by that standard would rarely exist.

The Internal Committee Is Not A Criminal Court
We often feel that criminal law standards should be applied in PoSH inquiries because we assume both processes are solving the same problem. They are not. A criminal court determines whether criminal liability has been established to a level that justifies punishment. It can send a person to jail. An Internal Committee determines whether workplace misconduct requires a workplace response.
The IC is not deciding whether someone should be imprisoned or convicted. It is deciding whether the workplace misconduct violated standards that require corrective, preventive, or remedial action.

Can an employer postpone decisions relating to employee safety? Can they tell a distressed employee who has reported sexual harassment at the workplace: “This is not admissible as there is insufficient evidence, you must wait till you have something concrete to show the IC.” The employer cannot. Questions about workplace safety, reporting relationships, team functioning, and future conduct need prompt answers. This is why courts have repeatedly resisted treating PoSH inquiries as miniature criminal trials.

No Absolute Evidence? An Inquiry Must Still Proceed
Workplace sexual harassment complaints often involve private interactions, disputed context, incomplete information, and competing accounts of the same events. Consider a complaint alleging repeated inappropriate comments during work travel, one-on-one meetings, or informal workplace interactions. Suppose B inappropriately touches H in an elevator while they are alone. No recording exists and no witness is present. If certainty is required before action can be taken, what is H supposed to do?
The workplace cannot simply avoid the issue because certainty is unavailable. The complaint still needs to be investigated and addressed.

Uncertainty and falsity are not the same thing. A complaint may be difficult to prove without being untrue. Requiring near-certainty in these circumstances does not eliminate ambiguity. It merely prevents the Internal Committee from acting unless unusually strong evidence happens to exist, which is often not the case in workplace harassment complaints.

In many workplace complaints, there may be no perfect evidence. An Internal Committee must still assess the available material and reach a conclusion. If it waits for complete certainty before making a decision, many complaints may never be resolved.

How Does The Law Expect Internal Committees To Decide?
Every decision-making process must answer the same question: what happens when the facts are disputed and certainty is unavailable? Criminal courts apply a high standard of proof because a person found guilty may face serious penalties. PoSH inquiries address a different problem. Internal Committees still have to examine complaints and make recommendations, even when certainty cannot be achieved.

The law does not require an Internal Committee to be completely certain about what happened, a standard often referred to as “beyond reasonable doubt.” Instead, it must look at all the available evidence and decide which version of events is more likely to be true. This is known as the “preponderance of probabilities” standard. In Medha Kotwal Lele v. Union of India, the Supreme Court confirmed that workplace sexual harassment inquiries follow this standard, rather than the stricter standard used in criminal cases.
It does not eliminate uncertainty. It provides a framework for responsible workplace decision-making despite uncertainty.

Internal Committees frequently decide complaints where certainty is unavailable. The preponderance standard is not a shortcut around evidence; it is the framework that allows workplace concerns to be examined and resolved despite uncertainty.
The effectiveness of the PoSH Act ultimately depends on whether Internal Committees can investigate and resolve workplace complaints in the real-world conditions in which those complaints arise.

How SHLC Can Help
SHLC helps organisations strengthen PoSH compliance through policy development, IC training, inquiry support, and unbiased workplace investigations. Our focus is on helping organisations conduct fair, legally compliant, and defensible PoSH inquiries.

To learn more, contact us at contact@shlc.in or +91 96253 92040.

Disclaimer: This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Specific situations may require independent legal assessment and professional guidance.