On 20 January 1999 — the first Supreme Court application of Vishaka — Chief Justice Anand, writing for a two-judge Bench, restored the disciplinary dismissal of a Private Secretary at the Apparel Export Promotion Council that the Delhi High Court had reduced. The judgment held that sexual harassment includes any unwelcome sexually-determined conduct and does not require physical contact; that unwelcomeness is judged from the victim's perspective; and that writ-court review of disciplinary action in sexual-harassment cases is narrowly confined to procedural fairness and proportionality. A digest of the holding, the CEDAW-anchored reasoning, and the line that runs from Vishaka through Chopra into Section 2(n) of the POSH Act 2013.
In the absence of a domestic statute on workplace sexual harassment, a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice Verma framed guidelines drawn from India's international obligations and made them binding by direction. The guidelines governed for sixteen years until the 2013 POSH Act codified them. A digest of the doctrinal move, the guidelines themselves, and the relationship between the judgment and the statute it inspired.