Policy on Paper, Silence in Practice: Implementation of the POSH Act, 2013 in India's Central Armed Police Forces

Abstract

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) was enacted to give statutory form to the constitutional guarantee of a harassment-free workplace recognised in Vishaka v State of Rajasthan. More than a decade after its enactment, however, its application to India's Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) — the CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP and SSB — remains structurally uneven. This paper examines the gap between the formal applicability of the POSH Act to CAPFs and its actual institutional implementation. It argues that the Act, designed primarily for fixed-location civilian workplaces, sits uneasily within the quasi-military command structure, remote and mobile deployments, and hierarchical reporting culture that characterise para-military service. Drawing on doctrinal analysis of the POSH Act and its constitutional foundations, comparative material on gender-responsive complaint mechanisms in foreign security-sector institutions, and institutional reports and secondary evidence on Internal Complaints Committee functioning in CAPFs, the paper identifies specific structural causes of implementation failure — inadequate ICC constitution at unit level, limited awareness among rank-and-file personnel, command-hierarchy disincentives to reporting, and the absence of statutory anchoring within the forces' own governing legislation. It further situates these findings within the wider trajectory of Indian service jurisprudence, from Vishaka through Apparel Export Promotion Council v AK Chopra to Secretary, Ministry of Defence v Babita Puniya and Lt Col Nitisha v Union of India, to show that courts have progressively demanded institutional, not merely textual, equality for women in uniformed service. It concludes that closing the implementation gap requires CAPF-specific adaptation of the POSH framework rather than continued reliance on a civilian-workplace template, and proposes a set of institutional and legislative reforms directed at the Ministry of Home Affairs and Parliament, supported by a structured accountability mechanism before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs.