Section 10 of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 carves out the single consensual off-ramp in an otherwise adversarial statute. Before the Internal Committee or Local Committee plunges into a formal inquiry under Section 11, the Act permits it to attempt a settlement — but only at the request of the aggrieved woman, and never on a monetary basis. Conciliation under the POSH Act is therefore a sharply hedged power: it restores agency to the complainant, who alone may switch the proceeding into settlement mode, while the express bar on buying silence guards against the workplace habit of paying a woman to withdraw. The provision sits between the complaint procedure and the inquiry, and how it is read — as a permissive tool or a mandatory step — has become one of the most contested questions in recent POSH jurisprudence.
The statutory text and its scheme
Section 10(1) is drafted in the permissive register: the Internal Committee or, as the case may be, the Local Committee may, before initiating an inquiry under Section 11 and at the request of the aggrieved woman, take steps to settle the matter between her and the respondent through conciliation. The subsection closes with an emphatic proviso — that no monetary settlement shall be made as a basis of conciliation. Three further subsections complete the architecture. Section 10(2) requires that where a settlement has been arrived at, the Committee shall record the settlement so arrived and forward it to the employer or the District Officer to take action as specified in the recommendation. Section 10(3) mandates that the Committee provide copies of the recorded settlement to both the aggrieved woman and the respondent. Section 10(4) provides that where a settlement is arrived at under sub-section (2), no further inquiry shall be conducted by the Committee.
The scheme is deliberately self-limiting. Conciliation is available only in the window before an inquiry is initiated; it is triggered only by the woman, never the respondent or the employer; and it cannot be financed. The provision must be read alongside Section 9, which governs how the complaint reaches the Committee in the first place, because conciliation presupposes a validly lodged complaint that has not yet ripened into a Section 11 inquiry.
“May”, not “shall”: the permissive design
The single most important word in Section 10 is “may”. The legislature did not say the Committee “shall” attempt conciliation; it said it “may”, and even then only “at the request of the aggrieved woman”. The grammatical structure makes conciliation doubly conditional — it is discretionary for the Committee and contingent on the woman's initiative. On a plain reading, a Committee that proceeds straight to inquiry because the woman never asked for conciliation has committed no illegality whatsoever; it has simply found the precondition for conciliation absent.
This permissive reading is reinforced by the Act's larger philosophy. The statute is remedial legislation tracing its lineage to Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1997 SC 3011, where the Supreme Court framed workplace sexual harassment as a violation of the fundamental rights to equality, life and the practice of any profession under Articles 14, 15, 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution. A statute born to vindicate constitutional rights should not be read to force a victim into a settlement dialogue with her harasser. The interpretive default, therefore, is that Section 10 confers a facility on the woman, not an obligation on her. The contrary reading — that conciliation is a mandatory pre-inquiry ritual — has nonetheless found judicial expression, as discussed below.
Only at the request of the aggrieved woman
The phrase “at the request of the aggrieved woman” is the keystone of the provision's protective design. The right to invoke conciliation is hers alone. Neither the respondent nor the employer nor the Committee on its own motion may initiate it. The reason is structural: in a power-asymmetric workplace, allowing the accused or the management to propose settlement would reproduce the very coercion the Act exists to dismantle. A respondent who could demand conciliation would gain a lever to pressure the complainant into a face-saving compromise; an employer keen to bury a scandal could lean on the Committee to broker peace. Section 10 forecloses both routes by vesting the trigger exclusively in the woman.
The protective logic dovetails with the definitional architecture of the Act. “Aggrieved woman” is defined in Section 2(a), and the Committees that administer conciliation are constituted under Section 4 and Section 6. Because the woman's request is jurisdictional, a Committee should record in writing that the request was made and was voluntary; an unrecorded or coerced “request” would render any resulting settlement vulnerable to challenge as having been arrived at without the statutory precondition.
The bar on monetary settlement
The proviso to Section 10(1) — that no monetary settlement shall be made as a basis of conciliation — is the provision's moral spine. It prevents the conversion of a harassment grievance into a commercial transaction in which a woman is paid to drop her complaint. The mischief targeted is familiar: the “hush settlement”, where the harasser or the employer offers a sum in exchange for withdrawal, leaving the conduct unpunished and the perpetrator free to repeat it against the next employee.
The statutory abhorrence of treating sexual harassment as a matter that can be settled by money or leniency draws strength from Apparel Export Promotion Council v. A.K. Chopra, AIR 1999 SC 625, where the Supreme Court restored the dismissal of a superior who had attempted to molest a subordinate, holding that any dilution of punishment would have a demoralising effect on women employees and that there can be no compromise on the question of eliminating sexual harassment from the workplace. While Chopra concerned disciplinary punishment rather than conciliation, its animating principle — that sexual harassment is not a tradeable wrong — is precisely what the Section 10 proviso codifies. A settlement that, in substance, pays the woman to stay silent is void for offending the proviso, even if it is dressed up as an apology accompanied by an ex gratia sum. Permissible conciliation terms are non-monetary: a written apology, a transfer of the respondent, an undertaking of future good conduct, counselling, or a change in reporting lines.
Recording and forwarding the settlement
Sections 10(2) and 10(3) impose documentary discipline. Where a settlement is reached, the Committee “shall” — here the language turns mandatory — record the settlement and forward it to the employer or the District Officer to take action as specified in the recommendation. The Committee must then supply copies to both parties under Section 10(3). These steps are not bureaucratic formalities; they are the mechanism by which an informal resolution acquires enforceable contours. The recorded settlement becomes the reference document against which future compliance is measured.
The forwarding requirement also locates accountability outside the room. Action on the settlement is taken not by the Committee but by the employer (in the case of an Internal Committee) or the District Officer (in the case of a Local Committee), mirroring the implementation architecture of the rest of the Act. A settlement that is reached but never reduced to writing, or never forwarded, is a non-event in the eyes of the statute; the protections of Section 10(4) — the bar on further inquiry — attach only to a settlement “arrived at under sub-section (2)”, that is, a recorded one.
Effect of a settlement: no further inquiry
Section 10(4) gives the recorded settlement its dispositive force: once a settlement is arrived at under sub-section (2), no further inquiry shall be conducted by the Committee. The complaint is, in effect, closed. This finality is what makes the recording requirement so consequential — a half-completed or unrecorded settlement does not bar inquiry, whereas a properly recorded one terminates the proceeding without any finding of guilt against the respondent.
Conciliation under Section 10 therefore differs categorically from an inquiry under Section 11. An inquiry tests the truth of the allegation and can culminate in findings and recommendations for action under Section 13; conciliation makes no finding at all and produces only an agreed resolution. A woman who conciliates forgoes the prospect of a determination that she was harassed, in exchange for a swifter, self-authored closure. The trade-off is precisely why the choice must remain hers.
Breach of settlement and the revival of inquiry
The finality of Section 10(4) is conditional, not absolute. The first proviso to Section 11(1) carves out the safety valve: where the aggrieved woman informs the Internal Committee or the Local Committee that any term or condition of the settlement arrived at under Section 10(2) has not been complied with by the respondent, the Committee shall proceed to make an inquiry into the complaint or, as the case may be, forward the complaint to the police. A respondent who pockets the benefit of a settlement — the withdrawal of the complaint, the avoidance of inquiry — but then reneges on his undertakings cannot hide behind Section 10(4). The bar on further inquiry lifts, and the woman's original complaint springs back to life.
This revival mechanism is the answer to the obvious objection that conciliation might be abused as an escape hatch. It is not a final acquittal; it is a contingent peace. The respondent's compliance is the price of the protection. Read together, Section 10(4) and the proviso to Section 11(1) create a conditional settlement regime: honour the terms and the matter ends; breach them and the inquiry resumes from where it would have begun.
A practical question follows: is there a time limit on invoking the revival? The Act does not prescribe one expressly, but the second proviso to Section 11(1) — which deals with the limitation period for filing the complaint itself, ordinarily three months from the incident, extensible by a further three months for sufficient cause — supplies the surrounding discipline within which a Committee operates. The sounder view is that once a woman reports non-compliance, the Committee's duty to inquire is enlivened regardless of how much time has passed since the settlement, because the cause of the revival is the fresh breach, not the original incident. To hold otherwise would let a respondent run out the clock by complying just long enough to defeat limitation and then reneging — precisely the gaming the revival clause is meant to prevent.
Is conciliation mandatory? The Kali Charan Sabat controversy
The most significant recent judicial intervention on Section 10 is Dr. Kali Charan Sabat v. Union of India (Writ Petition No. 10021 of 2024), decided by a Single Judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Justice Sanjay Dwivedi. The petitioner, an Assistant Professor at the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, had been dismissed pursuant to disciplinary proceedings founded on sexual harassment complaints. The Court held that the Internal Committee is under an obligation to make an attempt to settle the matter by way of conciliation, and that the matter has to be enquired into as per the service rules only if the Committee fails in settling it. On this reading, conciliation is a mandatory antecedent step, and an inquiry launched without attempting it is procedurally infirm.
The decision is controversial precisely because it appears to elevate “may” into “shall” and to read out the words “at the request of the aggrieved woman”. Commentators have argued that compelling a conciliation attempt before every inquiry inverts the protective scheme: it forces a victim toward settlement with her harasser even where she never sought it, undermining the autonomy that the conditional language of Section 10 was designed to preserve. The better view, consistent with the plain text and with the remedial purpose recognised in Vishaka, is that conciliation is an option the woman may elect, not a hurdle the Committee must clear. Kali Charan Sabat nonetheless remains a live authority that practitioners must reckon with, and until a higher court revisits it, Committees operating within the territorial reach of that ruling face a genuine compliance dilemma.
Natural justice and the conciliation-to-inquiry transition
Even where conciliation fails or is never invoked, the transition into inquiry must observe natural justice. Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa, decided by the Supreme Court on 12 May 2023 (Civil Appeal No. 2482 of 2014), is the leading modern statement of that principle in the POSH context. A professor at Goa University was dismissed after an Internal Complaints Committee inquiry into complaints by female students. The Supreme Court set aside the proceedings, holding that the inquiry had been conducted in undue haste and that the appellant, who had genuine medical reasons for his absence, was denied a reasonable opportunity to defend himself before an ex parte order was passed — a violation of the principles of natural justice.
The relevance to Section 10 is twofold. First, where a woman declines conciliation or none is sought, the Committee must move to inquiry with procedural fairness, not haste — a rushed inquiry is as vulnerable as a coerced settlement. Second, the Court in Aureliano Fernandes lamented that, a decade after the Act, its implementation remained inadequate, and issued sweeping directions to governments and institutions to ensure Committees are properly constituted and trained. A poorly trained Committee is exactly the body most likely to mishandle the delicate, consent-driven conciliation power, blurring the line between facilitating a voluntary settlement and pressing the complainant into one.
Conciliation distinguished from mediation and compromise
Section 10 conciliation must not be confused with ordinary civil mediation or out-of-court compromise. In a commercial mediation, monetary terms are the very currency of settlement; under Section 10 they are forbidden. In ordinary compromise, either party may propose terms; under Section 10 only the woman may initiate. The POSH conciliation is a sui generis, statutorily fenced process whose object is the woman's redress and dignity, not the efficient liquidation of a dispute.
The distinction also matters for cases that shade into criminal conduct. Where the harassment alleged would constitute an offence — for instance under the relevant provisions of the penal law dealing with outraging modesty or sexual assault — the existence of a Section 10 settlement does not extinguish criminal liability, because offences against the State are not the woman's to settle away. The Act itself recognises this by preserving, in the proviso to Section 11(1), the option of forwarding the complaint to the police where settlement terms are breached. Conciliation closes the workplace complaint; it does not, and cannot, compound a cognizable offence.
The contrast with mediation is sharpest on the point of neutrality. A mediator is a neutral facilitator who owes equal allegiance to both sides; the POSH Committee, by contrast, is not a neutral broker but a body charged with the protection of the aggrieved woman's rights, even while it conducts conciliation. This colours every step. The Committee must ensure the woman understands that she forgoes a finding of harassment if she settles, that she is under no compulsion to settle, and that she may abandon conciliation and demand an inquiry at any point before a settlement is recorded. The asymmetry of role is not a defect; it flows directly from the constitutional foundation in Vishaka, which treats the elimination of workplace harassment as a matter of the woman's fundamental rights rather than a private dispute between equals.
Practical compliance for Committees
For an Internal Committee or Local Committee, faithful administration of Section 10 reduces to a checklist grounded in the verified text. The Committee must (i) confirm that the woman has herself requested conciliation and record that request in writing; (ii) ensure the attempt occurs before any Section 11 inquiry is initiated; (iii) refuse any term that is monetary in substance, however it is labelled; (iv) reduce any settlement to writing and forward it to the employer or District Officer under Section 10(2); (v) furnish copies to both parties under Section 10(3); and (vi) abstain from further inquiry once a settlement is recorded, subject always to revival under the proviso to Section 11(1) on breach.
Committees operating within the reach of Kali Charan Sabat may, out of caution, document that the conciliation option was offered and explained to the woman, so that a subsequent challenge cannot allege that the step was skipped — while taking care that offering the option never tips into pressuring her to accept it. The governing distinction throughout is between facilitating a choice and manufacturing a settlement. The provision works only when the woman's autonomy, recognised in Vishaka and protected by the deliberate conditionality of the statutory language, remains the organising principle of the process.
The reform debate around conciliation
Conciliation under Section 10 has long attracted reformist criticism. Sceptics argue that any settlement mechanism within a harassment statute risks normalising the resolution of grievances by compromise and exposing complainants to subtle institutional pressure to “move on” rather than pursue a finding. Proposals have circulated to narrow or remove the provision entirely, so that every complaint proceeds to formal inquiry irrespective of the woman's preference. Defenders of Section 10 respond that abolition would itself be paternalistic: it would strip the aggrieved woman of a genuine, lower-cost, lower-trauma option that she alone controls, and would force her into an adversarial inquiry even where she wants nothing more than an apology and a transfer.
The debate is unresolved, and the conflicting judicial signals — the permissive plain text on one side, the mandatory reading in Kali Charan Sabat on the other — leave practitioners navigating genuine uncertainty. What is settled is the irreducible core of the provision as it currently stands: conciliation is available only on the woman's request, it can never rest on a monetary basis, it must be recorded to have effect, and it can be undone by the respondent's breach. For a fuller map of how this fits the larger redressal machinery, see the subject hub and the note on the prohibition of sexual harassment.
Frequently asked questions
Is conciliation under Section 10 of the POSH Act mandatory before an inquiry?
On a plain reading, no. Section 10 uses “may” and conditions conciliation on the request of the aggrieved woman, making it permissive and complainant-driven. However, the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Dr. Kali Charan Sabat v. Union of India (WP No. 10021 of 2024) held that the Internal Committee is obliged to attempt conciliation first and may inquire only if it fails. That ruling is controversial and arguably misreads the text, but it remains a live authority within its jurisdiction.
Can a sexual harassment complaint be settled for money under Section 10?
No. The proviso to Section 10(1) expressly states that no monetary settlement shall be made as a basis of conciliation. The bar prevents “hush settlements” in which a woman is paid to withdraw. Permissible terms are non-monetary, such as a written apology, transfer of the respondent, counselling or an undertaking of future good conduct.
Who can request conciliation — the woman, the respondent, or the employer?
Only the aggrieved woman. Section 10(1) confines the trigger to “the request of the aggrieved woman”. Neither the respondent nor the employer may initiate conciliation, because allowing them to do so would reproduce the workplace power imbalance and pressure the complainant into a compromise she never sought.
What happens if the respondent breaks the terms of a Section 10 settlement?
The settlement's finality lifts. Under the proviso to Section 11(1), if the aggrieved woman informs the Committee that any term of the settlement arrived at under Section 10(2) has not been complied with, the Committee shall proceed to inquire into the complaint or forward it to the police. The original complaint effectively revives.
Does a Section 10 settlement bar criminal prosecution of the harasser?
No. Conciliation closes the internal workplace complaint, but where the conduct amounts to a cognizable offence, criminal liability is not the woman's to settle away. The Act itself preserves the option, in the proviso to Section 11(1), of forwarding the matter to the police, and the principle in Apparel Export Promotion Council v. A.K. Chopra, AIR 1999 SC 625, that sexual harassment cannot be compromised away, reinforces this position.
What must the Committee do after a conciliation succeeds?
Under Section 10(2) it shall record the settlement and forward it to the employer or the District Officer for action as recommended; under Section 10(3) it shall give copies to both the aggrieved woman and the respondent; and under Section 10(4) it shall conduct no further inquiry. An unrecorded settlement has no statutory effect, so the documentary steps are essential rather than formal.