The POSH Act 2013 codified the Supreme Court's 1997 Vishaka guidelines, converting judicial directions on workplace sexual harassment into statutory law. The Act grounds employer liability in Articles 14, 15, 19, and 21 of the Constitution, treating a safe workplace as inseparable from dignity and equality. It mandates Internal Complaints Committees in organisations with ten or more employees and extends protection to domestic workers, contractual staff, and interns beyond formal employment relationships.

The POSH Act's constitutional architecture is what makes it distinctively testable. Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) arose from the gang rape of Bhanwari Devi, a social worker in Rajasthan. The Supreme Court, finding no domestic legislation, issued binding guidelines treating sexual harassment at the workplace as a violation of Articles 14 (equality), 15 (non-discrimination), 19(1)(g) (right to practise any profession), and 21 (dignity and personal liberty). These were not merely policy directions — the Court held them to have the force of law until Parliament legislated.

The POSH Act 2013 did legislate, but it did not merely copy Vishaka. It broadened the definition of 'aggrieved woman' to include domestic workers, trainees, and contractual employees — groups Vishaka did not explicitly cover. It introduced the Local Complaints Committee (LCC) for workplaces with fewer than ten employees and for cases against employers themselves, filling a structural gap Vishaka left open.

For CLAT PG, the key analytical distinction is between employer liability as vicarious (common law tort) and employer liability as constitutional duty (POSH/Vishaka). The Act treats failure to constitute an ICC or failure to act on a complaint not merely as a procedural lapse but as a constitutional failure — a breach of the duty to ensure an environment consistent with Articles 14, 15, and 21. This framing is what examiners extract: the Act's statutory relief provisions derive legitimacy from constitutional rights, not merely from legislative competence.