The law is often most revealing in the exclusions it attempts to justify.On 8 March, as the country marks International Working Women’s Day with celebratory affirmations of equality and empowerment, the justice system must face a different question: will it recognise women advocates as workers entitled to safety within its own precincts?The controversy over whether women advocates fall within the protective ambit of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 is being presented as a technical question about the existence of an employer-employee relationship. In truth, it is a question about whether women who practise law are to be recognised as workers in the justice system at all.In July 2025, the Bombay high court, in UNS Women Legal Association (Regd.) v. Bar Council of India & Ors., held that the PoSH Act would not apply to complaints of sexual harassment made by women advocates before Bar Councils because there was no employer-employee relationship between advocates and Bar Councils. The high court reasoned that Bar Councils cannot be considered “employers” of advocates and therefore the statutory scheme of PoSH would not be attracted. It suggested that women advocates could seek recourse under Section 35 of the Advocates Act, which deals with professional or other misconduct.At first glance, this appears to be a neat syllogism. No employment. No PoSH. Remedy lies elsewhere.But this neatness dissolves once one reads the statute.The PoSH Act defines an “aggrieved woman” as a woman “whether employed or not” who alleges sexual harassment at a workplace. The inclusion of the phrase “whether employed or not” is deliberate. It reflects the legislative understanding that sexual harassment is not confined to formal contracts of service. It occurs in spaces where power is exercised, where economic survival depends upon continued access, and where hierarchies are informal but real.Converting a rights-based legislation into a narrow service lawTo interpret PoSH as dependent upon a strict employer-employee relationship is to read out of the statute its most progressive feature. It is to convert a rights-based legislation into a narrow service law. That is precisely what the Bombay high court’s reasoning risks doing.The matter has not ended there. Three proceedings are now pending before the Supreme Court challenging or intersecting with that interpretation. The first is Seema Joshi v. Bar Council of India & Ors., in which notice has been issued and the petitioner seeks recognition that PoSH protections extend to women advocates and that Bar Councils and Bar Associations must constitute Internal Committees. The second is the petition filed by the Supreme Court Women Lawyers Association, which directly challenges the Bombay high court’s judgment and seeks affirmation that the Act cannot be confined to traditional employment relationships.The third, and perhaps the most constitutionally significant, is Geeta Rani v. Union of India (January 2026), which contests the institutional design along with asserting a constitutional claim: that women lawyers practising in courts across the country are entitled to a safe working environment as part of their fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15, 19(1)(g) and 21. That petition seeks directions to ensure that high courts, district courts, tribunals and bar associations establish effective gender-sensitisation and sexual harassment redress mechanisms for women advocates, interns, litigants and court users.These proceedings may force the legal system to confront an uncomfortable truth. Courts are not disembodied spaces. They are workplaces. Women advocates earn their livelihood within their precincts. We appear, argue, file, negotiate, confer, wait for listings, and build our professional standing inside those buildings. If a woman advocate is harassed in a corridor, a bar room, a chamber block, a filing section or a courtroom, she is not a visitor. She is working.The Supreme Court has already recognised this in its own institutional framework. The Gender Sensitisation and Sexual Harassment of Women at the Supreme Court of India Regulations, 2013 were framed after the enactment of PoSH and adopt the same inclusive formulation – protection extends to an “aggrieved woman” whether employed or not within Supreme Court precincts. The precincts are defined expansively, acknowledging that professional life in court extends beyond the courtroom itself. The mechanism contemplates meaningful institutional consequences, including restricting access to court premises and recommending further action.The Supreme Court has therefore accepted, at least for itself, that its premises constitute a workplace and that women advocates fall within the protective fold. It cannot be that what is constitutionally sound for the apex court becomes legally impermissible for high courts and district courts.The constitutional foundation for this position is not new. In Vishaka, the Court recognised sexual harassment as a violation of equality and dignity. In Medha Kotwal Lele, it acknowledged that mechanisms to address sexual harassment of women lawyers were absent and directed the Bar Council of India to ensure compliance with the Vishaka framework. In Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa, it issued sweeping directions to ensure the effective functioning of Internal Committees, including in high courts and district courts, and emphasised institutional accountability. These decisions do not treat the justice system as an enclave immune from the standards it enforces elsewhere.The argument that women advocates should rely solely on disciplinary proceedings under the Advocates Act confuses professional regulation with workplace safety. A disciplinary process under Section 35 is not designed to provide immediate protective measures within court premises. It is not structured around trauma-informed procedures nor is it anchored in the statutory duties imposed upon an employer to ensure a safe working environment. PoSH explicitly states that its provisions are in addition to, and not in derogation of, other laws. The existence of a disciplinary remedy, in other words, does not justify the denial of a workplace remedy.The employer-employee test, if accepted in this context, produces an anomalous and unjust result. Court staff would be entitled to invoke PoSH within court premises. Women advocates – whose professional survival depends upon access to the same space – would not. This creates a hierarchy of dignity within the institution: those who draw salaries are protected; those who draw briefs are not.The legal profession must decide whether it wishes to remain faithful to constitutional morality or retreat into formal categories that shield institutional discomfort. The employer-employee relationship is a convenient doctrinal device. It is also, in this context, a misreading of the statute and a misapprehension of lived reality.Women advocates do not seek special treatment. We seek recognition of what is already written into the law: that protection from sexual harassment at the workplace extends to women whether employed or not. We seek acknowledgment that courts are workplaces. We also seek institutional mechanisms that are transparent, inclusive and accountable.If the Supreme Court, in the pending matters of Seema Joshi, the Supreme Court Women Lawyers Association petition, and Geeta Rani v. Union of India, affirms that position, it will not be expanding the law. However, it will be restoring it to its intended breadth.The justice system cannot claim moral authority while denying safety to those who stand within it. The courtroom is not merely a forum for rights. For women advocates, it is where we work. And where we work, the Constitution must follow.Jhuma Sen is an Advocate at the Calcutta high court and the Supreme Court. She is also an Adjunct Faculty at NUJS, Kolkata and BITS Law School, Mumbai.