SHe-Box

What is SHe-Box?

SHe-Box, the Sexual Harassment electronic Box, is the Government of India's single-window online portal for complaints of sexual harassment of women at the workplace. SHe-Box is owned and operated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development and operates under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, commonly called the POSH Act, and the rules made under it.

SHe-Box was first launched in 2017 for central government employees. A rebuilt and far wider portal was launched on 29 August 2024, extending coverage to state governments, the private sector and the unorganised sector, and adding workplace registration, committee mapping and real-time tracking.

What SHe-Box does

• Acts as a central repository of workplace sexual harassment complaints drawn from both Internal Committees (ICs), which every workplace with more than 10 employees must constitute, and district Local Committees (LCs), which handle complaints from smaller and unorganised workplaces.
• Routes each complaint to the committee that actually has jurisdiction, so a woman does not have to work out which body to approach.
• Tracks status for the complainant and for a designated nodal officer at each workplace, with alerts when a case crosses the statutory 90-day inquiry period.
• Publishes committee details, since states and districts are required to keep Local Committee, District Officer and nodal officer information current.

What SHe-Box is not

SHe-Box does not conduct an inquiry and does not decide a case. The statutory inquiry, the finding and the recommendation stay with the Internal Committee or the Local Committee. SHe-Box is the filing, routing and monitoring layer around that process.

Who is eligible for SHe-Box?

You can file a complaint if:

• You are a woman who has faced sexual harassment at a workplace.
• The workplace is in the central government, a state or union territory government, a public sector undertaking, a private company, or the unorganised sector: SHe-Box accepts complaints across sectors.
• You were at the workplace in any capacity. The POSH Act covers regular employees, contractual and daily-wage workers, apprentices, interns, probationers and volunteers, and does not require a formal employment contract.
• The complaint is filed within three months of the incident or of the last incident in a series. The committee may extend this by a further three months where it is satisfied that circumstances prevented earlier filing.

Who cannot apply / is not eligible

• Men and other complainants are not eligible. The POSH Act 2013 protects only aggrieved women. A man facing harassment at work must use his employer's internal service rules or the ordinary criminal law.
• Harassment with no workplace connection cannot be filed here, for example harassment by a neighbour or on the street. Call 112 or 181, or go to the police.
• Complaints of other workplace grievances: pay, promotion, transfer, general bullying without a sexual element; are not POSH complaints and are not covered.
• Employers cannot file a complaint on behalf of themselves; they register on the portal as workplaces and their committees receive complaints.

Where the woman cannot file herself because of physical or mental incapacity or death, the POSH Act permits a legal heir or a prescribed person to file on her behalf.

What do you need to file on SHe-Box?

How to apply on SHe-Box: filing a complaint

1. Open the portal at shebox.wcd.gov.in, or use the complaint option in the Mission Shakti mobile app.
2. Create an account with your name, a valid email ID and a mobile number, and verify it with the OTP sent to that mobile number.
3. Select "Register your complaint" on the home page.
4. Enter the workplace details, employer name, address and sector, so that the portal can identify the Internal Committee or the district Local Committee with jurisdiction.
5. Describe the incident: the date or dates, the place, the name and designation of the respondent, and what occurred. Be specific about dates, since the three-month limitation runs from the incident.
6. Upload any supporting material: screenshots, emails, messages or a list of witnesses. A complaint is valid without documentary evidence.
7. Submit the complaint. It goes directly to the concerned Internal or Local Committee, and you receive a complaint reference.
8. Track the status by logging back into your account. The committee must complete its inquiry within 90 days; if it does not, the portal alerts the designated nodal officer.

How an employer registers on SHe-Box

1. Nominate a nodal officer at head office level and register the organisation on shebox.wcd.gov.in.
2. Have the registration verified by the District Nodal Officer, who confirms the workplace's credentials.
3. Upload the Internal Committee details. The Presiding Officer, members and the external member required by the POSH Act.
4. Register branches and units through the hierarchical access enabled after head office verification.
5. Keep the details current and act on the alerts the portal sends when a complaint approaches or crosses the 90-day inquiry limit.

District Officers have a parallel duty to keep Local Committee and District Officer details updated on the portal, so that a woman in an unorganised-sector workplace can see which committee will hear her complaint.

Help and support

• Women Helpline: 181
• Emergency response: 112
• National Legal Services Authority legal aid helpline: 15100
• Child Helpline: 1098
• Portal: shebox.wcd.gov.in

Filing on SHe-Box is free. No agent, consultant or lawyer is required, and a complainant's identity is protected by the confidentiality provisions of the POSH Act. If the incident also amounts to a criminal offence, filing on SHe-Box does not stop you from lodging a police complaint as well. The two routes run in parallel. Related crisis support is available at a One Stop Centre and through Mission Shakti.

How to check your SHe-Box complaint status

A complaint filed on SHe-Box does not end at submission. The portal is built around tracking, so a complainant and the workplace's nodal officer both have ways to follow what is happening to a case.

For the complainant

1. Go to shebox.wcd.gov.in and log in with the same email ID and mobile number used at registration.
2. Open the "My Complaints" or complaint status section of the dashboard. Each complaint filed from that account shows against the reference number generated at submission.
3. The status field reflects the stage the complaint is at: received and routed to the Internal Committee or Local Committee, under inquiry, or closed. SHe-Box shows routing and stage information; it does not display the committee's internal notes or evidence, since the inquiry itself is confidential under the POSH Act.
4. Note the number of days since filing. The statutory clock for the committee's inquiry is 90 days; if a case is approaching or has crossed that limit, the portal is designed to alert the workplace's nodal officer, and a complainant can use that same 90-day marker to know when to press for an update.
5. If the online status has not moved for several weeks with no communication from the committee, write directly to the Presiding Officer of the Internal Committee (for organised workplaces) or the district Local Committee, since the committee, not the portal, controls the pace of the inquiry.

For an employer or nodal officer

A registered organisation's nodal officer can log into the employer-side dashboard to see all complaints routed to that workplace's Internal Committee, along with the ageing of each case against the 90-day limit. This is how the alerts on approaching deadlines actually reach someone who can act on them.

If you cannot access your account

Filing was done with an email and a mobile number; if either is no longer accessible, use the portal's login-recovery option (which typically resends an OTP to a registered mobile number, or offers an email-based reset) rather than creating a fresh account, since a new account will not show the existing complaint. Where recovery through the portal fails, the Women Helpline (181) can guide a complainant on next steps, though it cannot itself change portal account details.

Complaints do not carry a separate SMS-based tracking number outside the portal login, so the account created at filing remains the primary way to check status.

Common reasons a SHe-Box complaint gets delayed or does not proceed

SHe-Box complaints are not "rejected" in the way a subsidy application is rejected for missing paperwork; the portal itself does not screen or approve complaints on merit, it routes them. But complaints do stall, get sent back for correction, or fail to result in an inquiry, for identifiable reasons.

• The complaint has no genuine workplace connection. If the narrative describes harassment by someone unconnected to the complainant's employment (a neighbour, a stranger, an incident outside any work context) the committee that receives it can decline to proceed, because the POSH Act's jurisdiction is limited to the workplace. Fix: only file on SHe-Box for harassment connected to your employment or a workplace visit; other harassment should go to the police or 181.

• Filed outside the three-month window with no explanation. The Act sets a three-month limitation from the incident, or the last incident in a series, extendable by another three months only if the committee is satisfied that circumstances genuinely prevented earlier filing. A complaint filed well past this window, with no stated reason for the delay, risks being treated as time-barred. Fix: file as soon as possible after the incident, and where there has been a long gap, state clearly in the complaint why filing was delayed, for example ongoing threats, medical treatment, or fear of retaliation.

• Incomplete or vague workplace and respondent details. SHe-Box routes a complaint using the employer and workplace information entered at filing. If the workplace name, address or sector is missing or wrong, the complaint can be misrouted or bounced back for correction before any committee can act on it. Fix: enter the exact registered name and address of the employer, and the respondent's name and designation as precisely as known.

• The narrative lacks basic specifics. A complaint that does not state when and where the incident happened, and what occurred, gives the committee nothing to investigate and is likely to be sent back with a request for clarification, slowing the process even though evidence is not mandatory. Fix: however brief, include the date or approximate date, the location, and a clear description of the conduct; supporting material such as messages or witness names strengthens the complaint but is not required.

• Filing against a non-employer respondent for a non-sexual grievance. General workplace disputes, pay or promotion complaints, or personal conflicts without a sexual element are outside the scope of the POSH Act and will not be taken up as SHe-Box complaints even if submitted. Fix: use the organisation's regular HR or grievance channel for non-POSH matters, and reserve SHe-Box for conduct that is sexual in nature.

• The workplace has no registered Internal Committee to route to. Smaller or informal workplaces sometimes have not registered on SHe-Box or constituted an Internal Committee, which can slow routing to the alternative Local Committee. Fix: this is not something the complainant can solve alone. If routing appears stalled for this reason, the district Local Committee, listed on the portal, has jurisdiction over unorganised and uncovered workplaces and can be approached directly.

• No follow-up once the case is inside the committee. SHe-Box passes the complaint on; it does not run the inquiry. A complainant who never logs back in to check status, or never responds when the committee asks for further information or a hearing date, can see the case lapse for want of participation rather than any fault in the original filing. Fix: check the portal status periodically and respond promptly to any communication from the Internal or Local Committee.