What the law requires
The Industrial Relations Code, 2020, in force since 21 November 2025, requires every industrial establishment employing more than a prescribed number of workers to constitute one or more grievance redressal committees for the resolution of disputes arising out of individual grievances.
The requirements attaching to it are specific rather than general.
- Composition. Equal representation of employers and workers, up to a prescribed maximum number of members, with adequate representation of women workers in proportion to the women employed.
- Chairmanship. Held by the employer and worker sides in rotation, on the prescribed basis.
- Time limit to apply. A worker may apply to the committee within a prescribed period of the cause arising.
- Time limit to decide. The committee must complete its proceedings within a prescribed period.
- Escalation. Where the grievance is not resolved, or the worker is dissatisfied, the matter may be taken further through the dispute machinery within a prescribed period.
Verify the employee threshold, the maximum committee size, the rotation basis and each time limit against the Code before relying on them. The structure was carried forward from the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, but the numbering and some of the detail changed.
What a grievance is, and what it is not
A grievance is a complaint about the employee's own employment: pay that appears wrong, leave refused, a shift pattern, treatment by a supervisor, the application of a policy to them. It is individual and it concerns terms or treatment.
Several things get routed into grievance systems that belong elsewhere, and misrouting them causes real harm.
| Complaint | Belongs to |
|---|---|
| Sexual harassment | The internal committee under the separate harassment legislation, with its own composition, timelines and confidentiality |
| Discrimination or harassment on other grounds | Depends on the policy; usually a distinct process with trained handlers |
| A disagreement with a disciplinary finding | The appeal route in the disciplinary procedure or standing orders |
| Whistleblowing about wrongdoing | The whistleblower channel, which needs different protections |
| A collective demand about terms | The industrial dispute machinery, not individual grievance |
The first row is the one that matters most. Sexual harassment complaints have their own statutory machinery with a specific composition, an external member, defined timelines and confidentiality obligations. Handling such a complaint through a general grievance committee is not compliance, and it exposes the complainant to a process that was not designed to protect them.
What makes a process employees actually use
Constituting a committee satisfies the obligation. It does not produce a working grievance process, and most organisations have the first without the second.
- A route that does not pass through the person complained about. The most common complaint is about a supervisor, and a process requiring the supervisor's endorsement is not a process.
- An acknowledgement with a date. Silence is read as rejection, and it converts a resolvable complaint into a resignation or an escalation.
- A stated timeline that is met. Meeting a slow timeline builds more trust than missing a fast one.
- An outcome communicated with reasons, including when the answer is no. Employees accept adverse outcomes far more readily than unexplained ones.
- Protection against retaliation, stated and enforced. The belief that raising a grievance is career-limiting is the single largest suppressor of usage.
- Aggregate reporting. Individual grievances resolve individual problems; the pattern across them shows where the organisation is generating them.
A grievance system with very low usage is not evidence of a happy workforce. It is usually evidence that people have concluded it does not work.
Handling one properly
The sequence matters, and it is short.
- Record it on receipt, with the date. The clock runs from then and the record is what evidences compliance with the timeline.
- Establish what is actually being complained about, which is frequently not what the first sentence says.
- Check whether it belongs in this process at all, and reroute promptly if not, telling the employee where it has gone.
- Investigate proportionately. A pay query needs a payroll check; an allegation about conduct needs a proper investigation with the other side heard.
- Decide, and communicate the decision with reasons and with the escalation route.
- Close the record, including what was decided and why, because this is what gets produced if the matter escalates.
Where the grievance turns out to be about a pay or leave calculation, resolving the individual case is only half the job. If the calculation was wrong for one person it is usually wrong for a class of them, and the grievance has just told you so at no cost.
What goes wrong
- No committee constituted at all, in an establishment over the threshold.
- A committee that exists on paper, has never met, and has no members who could name themselves as members.
- Women workers not adequately represented, contrary to the requirement.
- Sexual harassment complaints handled through the grievance committee rather than the internal committee.
- Time limits missed, so an unresolved grievance escalates into a dispute the employer then defends on the merits having already lost on process.
- Outcomes not communicated, leaving the employee to infer that nothing happened.
- Grievances resolved individually and never aggregated, so the same systemic cause generates complaint after complaint.
- Retaliation, formal or informal, after a grievance is raised, which ends the usefulness of the channel for everyone who observes it.
What the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 replaced
3 enactments stand repealed under s. 104, in force 21 November 2025.
- Trade Unions Act, 1926
- Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946
- Industrial Disputes Act, 1947
Across all four labour Codes, 29 enactments stand repealed. A policy or handbook that still cites one of them by name is describing rules that no longer exist.
Statutory reference
- Act
- Industrial Relations Code, 2020
- Section
- Industrial Relations Code, 2020: the requirement for every industrial establishment employing more than the prescribed number of workers to constitute one or more grievance redressal committees; the composition of the committee including equal representation of employers and workers, the maximum number of members and adequate representation of women workers; rotation of the chairperson; the period within which an aggrieved worker may apply; the period within which the committee must complete its proceedings; and the route to the conciliation and dispute machinery where the grievance is not resolved. In force 21 November 2025, repealing the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 among others. Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (internal committee, a separate and mandatory machinery for such complaints)
- Key limits
- A grievance redressal committee is mandatory above the prescribed worker threshold, with prescribed composition and women's representation. Time limits apply both to raising a grievance and to disposing of it. Sexual harassment complaints must go to the internal committee under the 2013 Act and not to the grievance committee. The statutory periods are three months to complain, extendable by three, ninety days to complete the inquiry, ten days for the report and sixty days for the employer to act. The Act's Indian Penal Code references are not mapped onto the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and no IPC section number is cited here. Each is framed as repealed, no provision of any of them is restated from its own text, and the current-law position is stated from the Code.
Frequently asked questions
Is a grievance redressal committee mandatory in India?
Yes, for industrial establishments employing more than the prescribed number of workers, under the Industrial Relations Code. The composition is prescribed too, including equal representation of employers and workers and adequate representation of women workers.
Can a sexual harassment complaint go to the grievance committee?
No. Those complaints go to the internal committee constituted under the separate 2013 legislation, which has its own composition including an external member, its own timelines and its own confidentiality obligations. Routing them elsewhere is both non-compliant and unfair to the complainant.
How long does an employer have to resolve a grievance?
The committee must complete its proceedings within the period prescribed by the Code, and a worker must apply within a prescribed period of the cause arising. Where it is not resolved, the matter can be taken to the dispute machinery within a further prescribed period.
What if my grievance is about my own manager?
A process that requires your manager's endorsement is not a usable process, and a well-designed one provides a route that does not pass through them. If yours does not, that is worth raising as a point about the process itself.
We receive almost no grievances. Is that good?
Not necessarily. Very low usage more often means employees have concluded the channel does not work, or that raising something is career-limiting, than that nothing is wrong. Anonymous survey data alongside grievance volume usually tells you which.
How Engage handles grievances
Engage records a grievance on receipt with the date the clock starts from, routes it away from the person complained about, and tracks it against the statutory timeline rather than leaving it in a mailbox. Outcomes are recorded with reasons, which is what gets produced if the matter escalates, and the aggregate view shows where in the organisation grievances are actually being generated.
See employee relations in Engage