When PoSH Policy Fails in India: Lessons from the TCS Nashik Case for HR and Compliance Leaders

Rainmaker May 2, 2026 Featured, Prevention of Sexual Harassment 5 min read

The recent TCS Nashik case has brought an uncomfortable but necessary question into focus: what happens when a PoSH policy exists, but employees do not use it?

This is not just about one organisation. It also reflects a broader challenge across workplaces in India, where PoSH compliance may exist on paper, but reporting mechanisms do not always work in practice.

For HR leaders and decision-makers, this is more than a headline. It is a reminder that compliance on paper is not the same as safety in practice.

What the TCS Nashik Case Reveals

The TCS Nashik matter is not just another workplace issue. Public reporting suggests that multiple employees filed police complaints alleging sexual harassment, while TCS said that no formal complaints had been received through its PoSH or ethics channels from the complainants. Since the matter is still under review, it must be discussed carefully.

Even so, the implications are serious. It raises a difficult question for every organisation: what happens when a formal reporting system exists, but employees do not use it or do not trust it enough to come forward? When that happens, the consequences go far beyond a single incident. Employee safety is affected, organisational trust erodes, and the credibility of the compliance framework itself comes under strain.

The Real Problem: Failure Before the Complaint Reaches the IC

The Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (“PoSH Act”) lays down a clear process for handling complaints of sexual harassment: the Internal Committee (“IC”) is the only authority empowered by the law to inquire into complaints of sexual harassment. Managers, HR professionals, and leadership should not attempt to independently investigate, mediate, or “resolve” such matters. There is no legal grey area here.

Yet in practice, the system often breaks down before a formal complaint is ever filed. Employees approach their managers first. Managers, often with good intentions, may try to handle the matter quietly. HR may try to contain the issue before it escalates.

What follows is often an informal, undocumented process that sits outside the legal framework and creates serious risk for the organisation.

This is not always driven by bad intent. More often, it comes from poor awareness, fear of reputational damage, and a mistaken belief that a quiet resolution is better than a formal one. But intent does not reduce the risk. If a complaint is not documented, not escalated, and not routed correctly, the organisation has already failed, both legally and ethically.

Why Employees Stay Silent

Understanding why employees bypass formal channels is just as important as fixing those channels.

In many cases, employees do not know where to go or whom to contact. In others, they fear retaliation, embarrassment, or being told to “let it go.” Some have seen concerns raised informally in the past and watched nothing change. And sometimes, as has been reported in the TCS Nashik case, the very people employees turn to for help may discourage them from filing formally.

When the reporting mechanism feels inaccessible, invisible, or untrustworthy, employees remain silent. And silence is not the same as safety.

What Organisations Must Fix: A PoSH Effectiveness Checklist

If you work in HR or leadership, this is a useful audit framework. These are not optional extras. They are the minimum requirements for a mechanism that works in real life.

1. Accessible Reporting Channels

Employees must have more than one way to reach the IC. That includes a dedicated email ID, direct contact details for IC members, and clear visibility of this information across all office locations. Off-roll employees, vendors, contractors, and gig workers must also be included, rather than treated as an afterthought.

2. Managers Who Understand Their Role

Managers must be trained to recognise a complaint and respond in exactly one way: by escalating it to the IC. Informal resolution is not a middle ground. It is a failure of process. Scenario-based training is essential so managers know how to respond in real situations, not just in theory.

3. An IC That Is Visible, Trained, and Approachable

IC members should be introduced during onboarding and reintroduced during periodic training. Employees should know who they are, how to reach them, and what to expect. IC members also need structured, ongoing training on legal procedure, inquiry handling, and evidence evaluation, not just a one-time certification.

4. Regular Touchpoints Beyond Annual Training

PoSH law awareness cannot be treated as a once-a-year exercise. Quarterly refreshers, pulse surveys, manager nudges, and scenario-based discussions help keep the subject alive throughout the year and reinforce that reporting is safe and expected.

5. Strong Documentation Practices

Every complaint (formal or informal) must be documented promptly. Every escalation must leave a traceable record. Nothing should be handled only verbally. If it is not documented, the organisation will struggle to demonstrate that it acted appropriately.

6. Leadership Accountability

Senior leadership must visibly reinforce zero tolerance. That means more than policy statements. It means periodic review of PoSH law implementation, inclusion of compliance metrics in leadership KPIs, and consistent messaging that the IC is the correct and only formal channel for complaints.

7. Confidentiality That Protects, Not Suppresses

Employees should understand what confidentiality means under the PoSH law framework. Confidentiality exists to protect the parties involved. It must never be used as a reason to avoid escalation or silence a complaint.

8. Bystander Awareness

A workplace where only the aggrieved are expected to report is fragile. Employees should be trained to recognise misconduct, intervene safely where appropriate, and report concerns to the right authority. Bystander awareness strengthens the whole system.

Culture Over Compliance

The TCS Nashik case makes one thing very clear: workplace safety cannot be outsourced to a policy document.

An organisation may be fully compliant on paper and still be unsafe in practice if employees do not trust the system, if managers act as gatekeepers instead of facilitators, or if complaints never reach the IC. Once that happens, the organisation risks losing control of the issue altogether, with courts, regulators, or the media shaping the narrative instead.

The real test of any PoSH law framework is not whether the policy is well-drafted. It is whether the mechanism holds up when it is actually needed, in a real situation, involving a real employee, under real pressure.

That is the question every HR leader and leadership team should be asking now. Not whether a policy exists, but whether the system would actually work if someone needed it today.

Strengthening Your PoSH Law Framework

If the answer is anything less than a confident yes, it is worth assessing the system before a case tests it for you.

Rainmaker works with organisations to move beyond paper compliance and build PoSH mechanisms that function in practice. This includes training ICs to conduct legally sound inquiries, facilitating workshops for employees and managers, auditing existing frameworks for structural and procedural gaps, and curating PoSH policies tailored to each organisation’s industry and workforce composition.

Because when it matters most, what counts is not the policy alone. It is whether the system actually works.