Pursuant to recent Supreme Court Directions in the case of Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa and Others, various state and UT authorities are coming up with public notices mandating the organizations having 10 or more employees to register their Internal Committees (“IC”) on SHe-Box (Sexual Harassment electronic Box) portal which is an Online Complaint Management System maintained by the Central Government. Any woman, working in any sector (organised/unorganised/private/public), can register the complaint related to sexual harassment at workplaces on the ‘She-Box’ portal. Once an IC or a Local Committee (“LC”) is onboarded on the portal and the complaint is submitted to the portal, it is directly sent to the concerned authority having jurisdiction to take action into the matter.
What is SHe-Box?
The “SHe-Box” portal has been launched by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (“Ministry”) to ensure timely redressal of complaints under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (“POSH Act”). It has been designed to serve as a central repository for Internal Committees (“IC”) and Local Committees (“LC”) of the organizations in public as well as private sectors.
As per the provisions of the POSH Act, every employer employing 10 or more workers/employees is required to constitute an IC. In the event, the number of employees/workers does not exceed 10 or the complaint is against the employer himself, the Appropriate Government is mandated to form a LC in every district. The idea behind the constitution of these committees is to ensure safety of women at workplace and resolution of complaints in a time-bound manner.
To facilitate the process of receipt and resolution of complaints and to maintain the data regarding number of Committees and number of complaints, the Ministry introduced the SHe-Box portal (https://shebox.wcd.gov.in/) which would act as the central database for the ICs and LCs of all the States/UTs once all such committees are registered on the portal.
This Central Database would help in achieving the following objectives:
- Efficient monitoring and management of complaints
- Availability of necessary information on rights and processes, training materials in one place
- Easier reporting of complaints because of the accessible platform
Implementation so far
Initially, the Ministry had launched the SHe-Box portal in 2017 to register and address the complaints raised by women working or visiting any office of the Central Government. Subsequently, following a comprehensive enhancement initiative, the portal was relaunched in August 2024, introducing improved functionality and a range of upgraded features such as –
- The complaint registration feature, which would allow any woman, irrespective of her workplace to file a complaint seamlessly by just logging onto the portal;
- The multilingual support feature, which would facilitate seamless interaction with the portal for women workers from diverse linguistic and social backgrounds and women working in the unorganized and domestic sectors;
- The automatic forward feature, which would ensure that the complaints once filed through the portal is automatically sent to either the IC or the LC based on the selection of the complainant.
On 29th November, 2024, the Press Information Bureau issued a Press Release, which was aimed at sensitizing the availability of the portal so that all Central and State/UT authorities could take effective measures to ensure registration of the ICs of all organizations on the portal.
Also, the Supreme Court (“Court”) in its Order dated 3rd December, 2024 in the said case of Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa and Others directed the authorities responsible for implementation of the POSH Act for the activation, integration, and utilization of the SHe-Box portal. In continuity of these directions, all states and Union Territories (“UTs”) are required to file affidavits containing the status of implementation of the directions.
In view of the above, several States and UTs such as Delhi, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and others have issued public notices, published and circulated articles in the local newspapers advising employers to register the Internal Committee details on the She-Box portal.
Several States have also prescribed specific timelines for registration on the portal. For example, in Rajasthan, all the organizations including private institutions have been directed to register on the portal by 1st July, 2025. In the public notice issued by Women & Child Development Department of Rajasthan, it has been specifically stated that the non-compliance would attract a fine of INR 50,000 as per the provisions of POSH Act.
Conclusion
The SHe-Box portal is a crucial step for ensuring safe and inclusive workplaces for women in India. Its user-friendly, multilingual platform and automatic complaint forwarding will enable women to report harassment seamlessly. With backing from the Supreme Court and various States/UTs authorities, the portal has all the potential to strengthen POSH Act enforcement and accountability. But its ultimate success depends on completion of registration by all the organizations obligated to have their own ICs.
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Written by: Sarnindita Chatterjee
Co-authored by: Amiya Mukherjee
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