POSH Act | ICC Can't Adjudicate Sexual Harassment Complaint Over Incident In Transport Not Provided By Employer: Bombay High Court

An alleged act of sexual harassment if occurring in a mode of transport not provided by the employer of either the accused or the victim, cannot be entertained under the provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act (POSH Act), held the Bombay High Court. [Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Bom) 290]

It therefore quashed the proceedings against a banker, accused of inappropriately touching a woman while travelling to office in a shared autorickshaw.

A division bench of Justice Suman Shyam and Justice Firdosh Pooniwalla noted that on the date of the alleged incident, the complainant woman and the accused-petitioner were travelling in a 'shared' autorickshaw from suburban Kurla railway station to the plush BKC area in Mumbai.

During this travel, it is alleged that Petitioner's hand touched the woman's bag, which she was carrying on the shoulder. She allegedly objected to the same and started shouting on the road however, the rickshaw driver dropped them at the BKC near their offices. Thereafter, she reported the incident to her company's Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), which forwarded the same to the ICC of the State Bank of India where the Petitioner was employed. 

The SBI's ICC on an enquiry, found the Petitioner guilty of sexual harassment and recommended that the company must take action against him as per the Service Rules. However, he appealed the same before the High Court via a writ petition and an interim order was passed directing the concerned authorities not to take a final decision on the recommendation of the SBI's ICC.

Defending his case, Petitioner contended that the said autorickshaw was a mode of public transport, and, by any stretch of imagination, could not have been termed as transport provided by the employer, as mandated under section 2(0)(v) of the POSH Act, which states that any place visited by the employee arising out of or during the course of employment, including transportation by the employer for undertaking said journey, would be included within the definition of the "workplace."

The bench in its June 16 order, pointed out that Section 2(o)(v) includes within the meaning of "workplace" transportation by the employer for undertaking a journey to any place visited by the employer arising out of or during the course of employment.

Therefore, in order to fall within the meaning of “workplace”, the transportation has to be provided by the employer, the bench made it clear. 

"In the present case, the Petitioner and the complainant, along with one another passenger, were sharing an autorickshaw from the Kurla Railway Station to BKC at Bandra. Although the Petitioner was going to his office, the said transportation had not been provided either by his employer or the employer of the complainant. In these circumstances, in our view, such transportation would not fall within the definition of a 'workplace' as defined by Section 2(o)(v). For the said reason, in our view, the alleged incident has not taken place at a workplace." the bench held.

Further, the judges said that the SBI's ICC cannot entertain a complaint of an aggrieved woman being subjected to sexual harassment if the alleged sexual harassment has not taken place at the 'workplace.'

"For this reason, in our view, the ICC (of SBI) had no jurisdiction to entertain the complaint of woman and pass the Order dated August 29, 2023. Therefore, in our view, the said Order of the ICC is un-sustainable in law and hence, liable to be set aside," the judges held. 

With these observations, the bench quashed the ICC's order recommending action against the petitioner. 

Appearance:

Advocates Anand Pande and Shobit Shukla appeared for the Petitioner.

Advocates Abhijit Joshi, Varsha Sawant, Varad Sirsikar and Sourav Somani represented the SBI and its ICC. 

Case Title: Siddesh Pradeep Satpute vs State Bank of India (Writ Petition 1213 of 2024)

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Bom) 290

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