POSH in Indian Universities Why ICC Complaints Still Fail
- BerryBeat Team
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
The Internal Complaints Committee is not a campus courtesy. It is a legal requirement.
Every Indian university is expected to have one. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013, better known as the POSH Act, requires workplaces to create internal mechanisms for complaints. The University Grants Commission regulations extend that duty across higher education, with annual reporting obligations and a dedicated portal.
On paper, the system looks firm. It gives survivors a forum inside the institution. It sets timelines. It creates duties for employers. It recognises that harassment is often enabled by hierarchy, silence, and fear.
Yet the real test of a protection is not whether it exists in a file. The test is what happens when a student, research scholar, teacher, or staff member uses it against someone more powerful.
That is where the promise of POSH in higher education begins to fracture. The committee exists everywhere. The outcomes remain uneven. The route after a weak or disputed decision is often unclear. The confidentiality rules protect complainants, but they also hide patterns. Many complaints are handled before they formally reach the ICC. In the most painful cases, the gap between law and lived experience can turn fatal.
This is an editorial analysis of the university ICC India problem, and the wider POSH Act higher education debate. It is informational, not legal advice.
The ICC was designed as a mandatory safeguard
The idea behind an Internal Complaints Committee is simple and serious. A person facing sexual harassment should not have to run only to the police, the media, or the courts to be heard. The institution must have a credible internal process.
Under the POSH Act, workplaces with the required threshold of employees must constitute an ICC. In universities, the UGC framework reinforces that duty. Higher education institutions must create mechanisms to receive complaints, conduct inquiries, recommend action, and report compliance.
A functioning ICC is supposed to do several things at once:
receive complaints without intimidation
protect the complainant from retaliation
conduct a fair inquiry
include trained members and an external member
recommend action where misconduct is found
send required reports to the institution and regulator
This matters because a university is not a normal workplace. It is a dense ecosystem of dependence.
A PhD scholar depends on a supervisor for funding, lab access, conference approvals, publications, recommendations, and timely submission. A young teacher may depend on senior faculty for contract renewal, workload allocation, department reputation, and career advancement. Students often depend on teachers for grades, attendance, viva marks, hostel access, and references.
In theory, an ICC breaks that dependence. It says the complaint will not be decided by the same hierarchy that produced the fear.
That is the legal imagination. A survivor should not have to negotiate privately with the department. A student should not have to beg for protection from the same officer who can ruin their semester. A teacher should not have to choose between dignity and employment.
Yet a mandatory body is not the same as an independent one. A committee can exist and still be weak. It can receive complaints and still discourage them. It can follow paperwork and still fail justice.
The university setting makes this especially difficult. Campuses value reputation. Departments protect their own. Faculty networks are long and informal. Students and junior academics know that a complaint can follow them quietly through interviews, references, fellowships, evaluations, and peer circles.
That is why the ICC cannot be treated as a tick-box compliance body. It is not just a welfare cell. It is a quasi-legal mechanism operating inside a power structure.
When it works, it can change a campus culture. When it fails, it does more than dismiss a complaint. It teaches everyone watching that the law is present, but the risk of using it is still personal.
The appellate gap turns a campus finding into a final wall
The sharpest structural flaw appears after the ICC has decided.
A complainant may enter the process believing that a flawed inquiry can be corrected within the university system. In many college-level cases, that expectation collapses. The POSH Act does not create a clear appellate authority for college-level ICC decisions inside the university structure. Once the committee gives its finding, a complainant who believes the decision is legally or procedurally wrong may be pushed towards the High Court.
That is not a small step. It demands legal resources, time, stamina, and public exposure. It also shifts the burden back to the complainant. The institution has already closed the file. The person who complained must now escalate against the institution itself.
The Kalindi College case at Delhi University shows why this gap matters. In September 2025, the college ICC reportedly ruled that lewd remarks and physical threats did not meet the legal bar for harassment. It also declined to let a committee member named in the complaint recuse himself. The professors involved had no internal appeal route left within the institutional structure. Their remaining route was the Delhi High Court.
That single fact should trouble anyone who believes in campus accountability. A process that can decide questions of harassment, credibility, conflict of interest, and institutional duty should not leave a complainant with only constitutional litigation as the next step.
A High Court is vital. It can correct illegality and protect rights. But courts are not substitutes for a well-designed appellate layer inside higher education. Litigation is slower, costlier, and more adversarial. It is also intimidating for people who entered the ICC process because the law promised an accessible forum.
The problem becomes sharper when the complaint involves people who are both powerful and institutionally connected. If a member of the committee is named in a complaint, even indirectly or contextually, the recusal question should not depend on informal comfort. It should be governed by strict conflict rules.
A fair process needs more than good intentions. It needs visible safeguards.
An appeal mechanism should be able to examine:
whether the ICC applied the legal definition correctly
whether the inquiry followed required procedure
whether conflict of interest was handled properly
whether interim protection was offered
whether the recommendation matched the findings
whether the complainant faced retaliation after filing
Without such review, the ICC becomes a high-stakes first and final forum. That is far too much power for a campus body that may itself be shaped by hierarchy, collegial loyalty, or administrative pressure.
The ICC appellate authority gap is not a technical defect. It is a democratic defect. It decides whether a person can challenge institutional failure without carrying the whole burden alone.
Confidentiality protects survivors, but it also hides patterns
The POSH Act’s confidentiality clause has a clear purpose. It protects the identities of complainants, respondents, witnesses, inquiry details, recommendations, and action taken. In a society where survivors often face blame, gossip, retaliation, and character attacks, confidentiality is not ornamental. It is essential.
But the same shield can become a curtain.
Universities report aggregate numbers to the UGC. They may say how many complaints were received, disposed of, or pending. They do not publish individual findings. They do not explain how many complaints were dismissed because the committee found no harassment. They do not reveal whether repeated complaints were made against the same department, supervisor, hostel authority, coach, or senior faculty member.
The result is a public record that looks compliant but says little.
A campus can report that it has an ICC, held awareness programmes, and disposed of complaints. That does not tell us whether complainants trusted the process. It does not tell us whether cases were pushed into informal compromise. It does not tell us whether committees dismissed similar complaints year after year. It does not tell us whether powerful respondents faced real consequences.
For journalists and researchers, this creates a narrow path. Patterns often become visible only through RTI requests, court filings, student testimonies, resignations, protests, or tragedy. By then, the institutional system has already failed to inform the public.
This does not mean universities should publish names or sensitive facts. They should not. Confidentiality must remain non-negotiable for identities and case details that can expose survivors.
But anonymised transparency is possible. Institutions can publish more meaningful annual data without violating privacy.
For example, a university could disclose:
the number of complaints filed by students, faculty, and staff, without naming anyone
the broad category of relationship involved, such as supervisor-scholar or teacher-student
how many complaints were closed after inquiry
how many were dismissed at the threshold
how many led to findings of misconduct
what broad categories of action were recommended
whether appeals or court challenges followed
whether interim measures were granted
average time taken to complete inquiries
This kind of reporting would not expose survivors. It would expose institutional habits.
That distinction matters. Confidentiality should protect people, not patterns of impunity.
Many cases never reach the committee at all
A second failure happens even earlier. Complaints may never formally arrive at the ICC.
At IIT Ropar, PhD scholars described a pattern to reporters this year in which many complaints were handled within departments, off the record, before they reached the committee. This is not unusual in hierarchical institutions. A student raises discomfort. A supervisor, head, or senior faculty member suggests “settling” the matter internally. The complainant is told to avoid escalation. The accused may be warned informally. The department moves people around. The paper trail vanishes.
This is often presented as a practical solution. It is faster, quieter, and less damaging to the institution.
But quiet handling can become quiet burial.
Informal resolution may be appropriate only in limited situations where the law allows conciliation, the complainant freely chooses it, and no monetary settlement is involved. It cannot become a substitute for the complainant’s right to file. It cannot be used to protect the department from embarrassment. It cannot be used to pressure a junior person into silence.
In universities, the pressure to stay informal is powerful.
A complainant may hear variations of the same warnings:
“This will affect your career.”
“Do you want to be known for this?”
“He is retiring soon.”
“Think of the department.”
“There is no evidence.”
“We will handle it quietly.”
“Do not spoil your PhD.”
“You will have to face questions.”
The words may sound concerned. The effect is disciplinary.
When complaints stay inside departments, the university leadership can claim ignorance. The ICC can report low numbers. The regulator receives clean data. The public sees quiet campuses. The burden remains with the person harmed.
This is why low complaint numbers should not always be read as proof of safety. In a campus with deep hierarchy, low numbers may signal fear, mistrust, or informal suppression.
A credible POSH regime must treat non-reporting as a governance question. If scholars and students say complaints are being contained at the department level, the institution cannot respond by pointing to the existence of an ICC. The issue is whether the path to the ICC is protected.
The mechanism must be visible, independent, and repeatedly explained. Students should know that they can approach the ICC directly. Faculty should know that discouraging a complaint can itself invite scrutiny. Department heads should not act as gatekeepers. Supervisors should not be allowed to turn serious allegations into private misunderstandings.
The right to complain is not meaningful if the first institutional response is to make the complaint disappear.
The Supreme Court’s warning was not abstract
In 2024, the Supreme Court called the state of POSH enforcement nationally “disquieting”. The Court noted serious non-compliance even among national sports federations.
That warning was not limited to sport. It spoke to a wider truth about Indian institutions. Legal mandates can exist for years without becoming institutional culture.
The POSH Act is one of the more significant workplace protections in Indian law. Its moral force comes from the recognition that sexual harassment is not only an individual wrong. It is also an abuse of unequal power. The law asks employers to prevent harassment, not merely react after damage is done.
But prevention requires more than posters and annual reports.
It requires training that people take seriously. It requires committees that know the law. It requires administrators who do not treat complaints as reputational threats. It requires respondents to receive due process without allowing due process to become delay. It requires interim protection that does not punish the complainant by moving them, isolating them, or slowing their work.
Some institutions have acted. IIT Mandi and IIT Roorkee have dismissed professors following ICC findings in the past two years. These cases matter because they show that institutional action is possible. Seniority is not an automatic shield. Academic status does not place someone outside workplace law.
Yet even these examples carry a warning. Such outcomes often followed sustained public pressure. They did not always look like routine institutional accountability. When action depends on protest, media attention, or reputational fear, the mechanism is not yet healthy. It is reactive.
The death of a Balasore college student by self-immolation in July 2025 after her ICC dismissed her complaint against her department head as unproven stands as a devastating reminder. No legal analysis should flatten such a death into a policy example. A young life was lost. The fact that a committee existed did not make the student safe. The fact that a process occurred did not create trust.
That is the core wound in sexual harassment complaints India universities face today. Compliance is visible. Confidence is fragile.
Reform must make the process reviewable, visible, and safe
Campus harassment reform India needs a shift from existence to effectiveness. The question cannot be, “Does the university have an ICC?” The question must be, “Can a vulnerable person use it without being crushed by the institution?”
That requires changes in law, regulation, and campus practice.
Create a clear appellate route within higher education
College-level ICC decisions should not leave complainants with only High Court litigation. A university-level or independent appellate body, with trained external experts, could review procedure, legal reasoning, conflict concerns, and proportionality of action. It should be time-bound and accessible.
Strengthen conflict of interest rules
No person named in a complaint, connected to the respondent, subordinate to key decision-makers, or otherwise conflicted should sit in inquiry or review. Recusal should not be discretionary theatre. It should be a written rule with consequences.
Publish anonymised outcome data
Universities should publish annual POSH data that goes beyond aggregate disposal numbers. They can protect identity while still reporting categories of complaints, broad outcomes, timelines, interim measures, and repeat institutional locations such as departments or hostels.
Audit informal handling of complaints
Departments should not be allowed to absorb POSH complaints quietly. Universities should require any teacher, supervisor, or administrator who receives a harassment complaint to inform the complainant of the ICC route in writing. A failure to do so should be treated as a compliance breach.
Protect complainants after filing
Retaliation rarely announces itself. It appears as delayed evaluations, hostile lab culture, poor recommendations, social exclusion, changed supervision, sudden scrutiny, or administrative obstacles. ICCs must track what happens after a complaint is filed, not just what happened before.
Train committees like legal forums, not welfare clubs
ICC members need regular training on evidence, trauma-informed questioning, natural justice, confidentiality, conflicts, interim relief, and reasoned orders. A poorly trained committee can harm both complainants and respondents. Fairness requires competence.
Let external members be truly independent
The external member should not be ornamental. They should bring legal, gender, labour, or social sector experience, and be free from institutional dependence. Universities should disclose the qualifications and tenure of external members without compromising case confidentiality.
Treat public pressure as a warning sign
When action comes only after protests or media coverage, institutions should not congratulate themselves. They should ask why the internal process did not command trust earlier.
The law is present, but accountability still needs witnesses
The POSH framework gave Indian campuses a language for dignity at work and study. That was not a small achievement. It told universities that harassment is not a private inconvenience. It is an institutional failure.
But the next phase must be more honest.
A law can mandate an ICC. It cannot, by itself, make the committee brave. A regulation can demand an annual report. It cannot, by itself, reveal whether complaints were quietly buried. A confidentiality clause can protect a survivor. It cannot be allowed to protect a pattern.
The campuses that will lead the next decade are not the ones that claim they have no complaints. They are the ones that can show people know where to go, that complaints reach the right forum, that conflicts are removed, that findings are reasoned, that outcomes are reviewable, and that retaliation is watched.
The mechanism exists everywhere. Whether it works still depends on who is watching.
That watching cannot fall only on survivors. It must come from regulators, courts, faculty associations, student unions, governing bodies, journalists, researchers, alumni, and the institutions themselves.
The ICC is not optional. Neither is trust.
