SHe Box Portal – An effort towards ensuring compliance with the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prohibition, Prevention and Redressal) Act, 2013

Anhad Law
Aug 25
2 min read

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has launched an upgraded version of the Sexual Harassment electronic Box (“SHe Box”). SHe Box is an online system designed to facilitate better implementation of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (“PoSH Act”). It will act as a central repository of information pertaining to the internal committee (“IC”) and the local committee (“LC”), whether in private or public sector organizations, respectively, constituted in accordance with the PoSH Act and as an end-to-end complaint monitoring system.

SHe Box enables an aggrieved woman, or any other person on her behalf, to register a complaint of sexual harassment at workplace. The complaint can be registered by logging onto the portal by providing details such as name, phone number, email and work status. In case of a person submitting complaint on behalf of the complainant, such person would have to also disclose their relationship with the aggrieved woman and submit an undertaking obtained from them. In the event, an IC is not registered on the portal, it will require details of the complainant’s workplace and the nodal officer of the concerned jurisdiction will ensure registration of the IC at the earliest. Based on the nature of employment and employer, the complainant will have to also select the IC or LC of the workplace to submit the complaint. The complaint will be directly registered with the IC or the LC, as the case may be.

Further, the designated nodal officers appointed under the PoSH Act will be able to monitor the data with respect to complaints (i.e., number of complaints registers, disposed of, pending etc.) and will also be responsible for updating the data on the portal. Similarly, the complainants would also be able to track the complainant status. The portal has been developed in a manner to ensure confidentiality of the complainant and only the chairperson of the IC/LC will have the access the details of the registered complaint. Reports in respect of IC/LC of a particular ministry/department/state/UT/private sector/district for monitoring compliance.

Anhad Law’s Comment

Ministry has made this effort towards strict enforcement of the PoSH Act. Further, SHe Box will also help with timely redressal of the complaints by the complaint committees. Therefore, in our view, this initiative focuses on compliance with PoSH Act as a key feature for the employers. Accordingly, to achieve the objective of this initiative (i.e., ensuring compliance with the PoSH Act), there would be enhanced scrutiny over the employers through this portal. Given this, the employers in public and private sector must ensure compliance with the provisions of the PoSH Act and it would be recommended to register the complaints committee on the SHe Box portal to avoid any issues in future.