Siddhesh Satpute v. State Bank of India (2026): a shared autorickshaw is not a 'workplace' under the POSH Act

The reach of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 has steadily expanded in practice, often well beyond the four walls of an office. The statute itself invites that expansion: its definition of "workplace" is deliberately inclusive, extending to places visited by an employee "arising out of or during the course of employment including transportation provided by the employer for undertaking such journey." The question in Siddhesh Pradeep Satpute v. State Bank of India was where that elastic phrase stops. A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Justice Suman Shyam and Justice Firdosh P. Pooniwalla, drew the line at the words the Legislature actually used: transportation counts as a workplace only when the employer provides it.

The facts in brief

The petitioner, Siddhesh Pradeep Satpute, was an employee of the State Bank of India. A complaint of sexual harassment was made against him by a co-worker (referred to in the judgment as respondent No.3) arising out of conduct said to have occurred in a shared autorickshaw used to travel to the office. The Bank's Internal Committee — the body constituted under the POSH Act to inquire into workplace complaints — took up the matter, conducted an inquiry, and returned a finding against the petitioner.

Satpute challenged the Committee's order before the High Court. The crux of his case was not primarily on the merits of the allegation but on a logically prior point: whether the incident, even if it occurred as alleged, fell within the Committee's mandate at all. The autorickshaw, he argued, was an ordinary shared vehicle hailed for the commute — not transport furnished by the Bank to either him or the complainant.

The question

The dispute turned on the construction of s.2(o)(v) of the POSH Act, which brings within the definition of "workplace" any place visited by the employee arising out of or during the course of employment, including transportation provided by the employer. The interpretive choice was clean. Either the inclusive language sweeps in any commute connected to employment — in which case the shared auto would qualify, and the Committee had jurisdiction — or the statutory qualifier "provided by the employer" is a genuine limiting condition, in which case a privately hailed shared vehicle falls outside the definition and the Committee never had authority to inquire.

This was, in substance, a jurisdictional question. The existence of a "workplace" is the gateway fact for the entire POSH machinery: an Internal Committee can only inquire into harassment that occurred at a workplace as the statute defines it. If the locus of the alleged conduct is not a workplace, the inquiry is a nullity regardless of what it concludes.

What the Court held

The Division Bench held that the shared autorickshaw was not a workplace and that the Internal Committee accordingly lacked jurisdiction. The decisive feature was the absence of any employer connection to the transport itself.

Because the vehicle had not been provided by the employer of either the accused or the complainant, it could not be brought within s.2(o)(v). As the Court put it in summary, an autorickshaw taken by an employee would not fall under the definition of a "workplace" amenable to an Internal Committee's jurisdiction when such transport has not been provided by the employer. The order of the Internal Committee against the SBI employee was set aside.

Analysis

The judgment is a textualist correction to a tendency to read s.2(o)(v) as if the qualifier "provided by the employer" were surplusage. It is not. The provision could have stopped at "transportation undertaken in the course of employment"; the Legislature instead attached a specific condition tying the protected transport to the employer's provision of it. The Bench gave that condition its plain effect. A shared autorickshaw hailed by an employee for her own commute, paid for by herself, and chosen at her own discretion bears none of the indicia of employer control that the clause contemplates — the employer neither arranges, funds, nor exercises any authority over the journey.

That reasoning carries a coherent rationale. The "workplace" concept in the POSH Act is ultimately a proxy for the employer's sphere of control and responsibility. The Act fastens duties on the employer — to constitute a committee, to maintain a safe environment, to enforce findings — precisely because the employer commands the relevant space. Employer-provided transport extends that sphere into a vehicle the employer has chosen and over which it can, in principle, set conditions. A privately shared auto sits outside any such sphere; extending the employer's POSH liability there would impose responsibility for a space the employer neither controls nor could reasonably police.

The judgment should not be over-read. It does not hold that off-premises conduct is beyond the Act, nor that commuting is categorically excluded — employer-provided transport remains squarely within the definition, and conduct in the course of off-site work continues to qualify. The ruling is narrow and conditional: the mode of transport must bear the employer's imprimatur. Nor does the Court suggest the complainant is without remedy; a finding that the POSH forum lacks jurisdiction leaves the ordinary criminal and civil avenues untouched. The holding is about the correct forum, not about whether wrongdoing can be redressed at all.

Why it matters

For employers and Internal Committees, the practical lesson is that jurisdiction is the threshold inquiry, and it must be settled before the merits. A Committee that proceeds to a finding on conduct occurring in a non-workplace setting risks having the entire order quashed — exactly what happened here. Committees would do well to record, at the outset of any complaint with an off-premises element, whether the locus satisfies s.2(o) and, where transport is involved, whether the employer provided it.

For complainants and their advisers, the decision is a reminder that the choice of forum carries consequences. Where harassment occurs in a setting that may not meet the statutory definition of "workplace," parallel or alternative recourse — criminal complaint, civil action — should be considered rather than relying solely on the POSH route, which can be defeated at the jurisdictional gate. And for the broader development of the law, Satpute is a useful data point on how the inclusive "workplace" definition is policed at its edges: expansively in purpose, but not so expansively as to erase the words the statute actually chose.

Related on Valkya

• Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan: the guidelines that became the law
• Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa: the POSH enforcement audit, ten years after the statute
• Labour and employment law: May-June 2026 roundup

Sources

• LiveLaw — POSH Act: shared rickshaw sexual harassment, ICC jurisdiction
• Bar & Bench — Shared auto not 'workplace' under POSH Act: Bombay HC grants relief to SBI employee
• Verdictum — Siddhesh Pradeep Satpute v. State Bank of India & Ors. (2026:BHC-OS:13320-DB)