10 complaints.
From Ph.D. students. From postdoctoral fellows.
All against one associate professor of Astrophysics at the Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad.
The charges? Brutal.
Unwelcome advances.
Sexually coloured remarks.
And even an admission of sending pornographic material over email.
The Internal Complaints Committee heard it all… and held him guilty.
And then — the story took a turn nobody expected.
The ICC wanted serious consequences:
But the institute's governing council softened the blow.
It handed down a mere censure. Plus a bar on guiding female students and postdocs.
That 2017 order travelled all the way to the Allahabad High Court.
Not from a complainant.
From the professor himself.
The POSH Act, 2013 has a clock.
👉 Complaints must be filed within 3 months of the incident.
👉 Extendable by another 3 months — only for good reason.
The alleged incidents? Between 2013 and 2016.
The complaints? Filed years later.
No recorded reasons for condoning the delay. No specific findings. He said the ICC had simply walked past its own jurisdiction.
Here's where it gets interesting.
The court refused to throw the case out on delay alone.
"Complaints cannot be rejected at threshold without specific consideration," Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery held.
POSH, after all, was born from Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan. Its purpose is protection — not pedantry.
But then came the bigger problem.
The judge tore into the procedure:
Under the POSH Act, an ICC has the powers of a civil court for summoning and examination.
It has to act like one.
This one didn't.
The ICC report — quashed.
The censure order — gone.
The entire matter — sent back for a fresh inquiry within 8 weeks.
Not a clean chit. Not vindication. Just a reset button.
POSH isn't just about protecting women.
It's also about doing it the right way.
Because a shortcut today becomes a quashed order tomorrow. And survivors end up reliving everything — all over again.
Natural justice isn't a technicality.
It's the spine of the whole law.
That's all for now!
