TERI chief Dr R K Pachauri faces IPC 354, 354A, 354D, 506; media trial starts now

After the 2013-14 episode of a law intern’s sexual harassment complaint against ex-Justice A K Ganguly which didn’t go anywhere because probably it was never meant to, we have one more sexual harassment/molestation complaint against a well known person.

Delhi Police FIR against R K Pachauri on charges of sexual harassment

TERI chief R K Pachauri , who received the Nobel in 2007 on behalf of an international panel on climate change, has been named in an FIR lodged in New Delhi by a woman colleague who has accused him of sexual harassment.

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In the FIR, the complainant, who works at the D-G’s office in TERI, claimed that Pachauri had sexually harassed her for nearly two years since she joined the organisation in September 2013. She also alleged that Pachauri had engaged in “sexually laden conversations” with her over email and SMS.

The FIR was based on a complaint filed by the woman at the Lodhi Colony police station on February 13, and included charges under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), 354 D (stalking) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.

The complainant also asked police to seize Dr Pachauri’ s laptop, mobile etc

According to police sources, hours after the registration of the FIR, the woman submitted a written request to police, asking them to confiscate Pachauri’s  “mobile phone, laptop and other computers”.

In another more recent development, the radical feminists and the humanist feminists have banded together to demand that police do it’s job, and do it as the feminists demand it should be done, because the feminists know everything on how police should function:

Meanwhile, some leading lawyers and activists, including Vrinda Grover and Indira Jaising, a former Additional Solicitor General, and Prashant Mehdiratta, the lawyer for the complainant against Mr  Pachauri, held a press conference today to demand that his passport should have been seized by the police.

Not stopping at demanding that Pachauri’s passport be impounded, the feminist duo along with complainant’s lawyer proceeded to add an old story to the whole mix, solely for the benefit of media, so that the media can now be expected to go on a wild goose chase searching for this woman rather than focus on the present case filed against Dr Pachauri.

They also claimed that another former woman employee of TERI had sent them a letter complaining about Mr Pachauri’s behaviour with her 10 years ago when she worked there. The lawyers also circulated the letter of the woman.

The allegations made by the complainant seem to of nature that can be easily proved by electronic evidence like email and SMS, PROVIDED either Mr Pachauri’s laptop/mobile OR the complainant’s laptop/mobile are produced without any tampering:

In the FIR, the complainant, who works at the D-G’s office in TERI, claimed that Pachauri had sexually harassed her for nearly two years since she joined the organisation in September 2013. She also alleged that Pachauri had engaged in “sexually laden conversations” with her over email and SMS.

It will be interesting to see which direction this case goes in.  If the feminists’ theology is to be believed, whether a woman files a case after 1 year, 2 years, or 10 years (as the letter disclosed by ‘another woman’ in press conference), they should be taken very seriously and the accused man’s freedoms be curtailed, and so on.  In justice A K Ganguly’s case, the law intern who wrote a blog post after 11 months of delay, didn’t cooperate with police to record her statements, and so an FIR could not be filed.  In this case, the FIR is already filed so let’s hope some fast track justice can happen, because if it goes the media trial way then there is high amount of suspicion that this could be yet another case to curtail a man’s freedom and destroy his reputation rather than secure justice.