Events following Gogoi allegations should “send a shiver down everyone’s spine”: Pachauri complainant

In February 2015, a former employee at The Energy and Research Insitute, or TERI, wrote to the organisation’s internal complaints committee. She stated in her complaint that she had been sexually harassed by RK Pachauri—the founder and then TERI’s director general—over the year and a half she had worked with him. Four days later, she filed a police complaint against Pachauri. Over a year later, the Delhi Police filed a chargesheet before a metropolitan district court in Saket, charging Pachauri with sexual harassment, stalking, and criminal intimidation, among other offences. Meanwhile, the ICC proceeded with its inquiry—although its members faced constant hostility from their colleagues, even, according to its final report, “including visits to the internal ICC members’ home at late hours.”

In May 2015, the ICC found Pachauri guilty of sexual harassment. It recommended that TERI award damages to the complainant. But the organisation never acted on the committee’s report—soon after, Pachauri approached an industrial tribunal, asking for a stay on the report. The tribunal granted it. On 20 October 2018, over three years after the former employee first filed the police complaint, the court framed charges against Pachauri. The case against him continues to languish in the courts.

Below is a statement by the former TERI employee, regarding the events that have followed in the wake of allegations of sexual-harassment against the chief justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, by a former employee of the Supreme Court. On 6 May, the apex court announced through a notification on its website that an “in-house” committee found “no substance” in the allegations against the CJI.

It’s back—the anxiety, the tummy aches and the overall sinking feeling. As I watched a series of events unfold after a woman spoke out against one of the most powerful men in the country, I was starkly reminded of the incidents that followed my sexual-harassment complaint against the top boss at TERI. But even as I recall what the ICC had to endure, and the hostility I faced from the organisation, I still feel compelled to call myself lucky. At least I was able to participate in an ICC that was constituted under the sexual-harassment law. I had filed an FIR and media pressure was constant—without these, the proceedings may not have taken place at all. Still, “due process” took a lot out of me. My physical and mental health took a toll. My work suffered. I was left to wait endlessly for justice.

Several incidents, complaints, cases and counting, we seem to have learned nothing. “Due process” in cases of sexual harassment at the workplace is being done away with at the very institution that once guaranteed it. The power differential in this case—between a junior court employee and the chief justice of India—is being brazenly rubbed in our faces.

Many times, when legal developments in my case caused shock and disappointment, I would begin to pen a letter or a complaint to the concerned authorities. The process of writing down my ordeal, printing it out, finding time to go to the speed-post office, that too on a working day, exhausted me. The woman alleging sexual harassment at the hands of the CJI printed 22 copies of her allegations. If there is even an iota of truth in her complaint, what must her mind and body be going through as she wrote it all down, and arranged for copies to be delivered to the residences of 22 Supreme Court judges? In return, her narration of the alleged ordeal has been used as arsenal to question her character and motivation. Is it not a very basic legal inscription that in such cases, you don’t point fingers at the character of the woman alleging sexual harassment? The merits of a complaint aside, a fair inquiry is the basic and foremost right of the complainant, and even the accused.

I find it lamentable that an institution that is looked to for protecting the rights of over a billion people has failed to find it in itself to act righteously.The system regularly demands that women turn to it for a fair hearing, and yet, it has denied this to a woman accusing one of its own. That the highest judicial office in the country did not recognise due process should send a shiver down everyone’s spine.

To those who care for their country and institutions, or the women in their lives, this can be nothing short of a wake-up call. It must not take a woman to be brutally assaulted and murdered for you to throng the streets in protest. To the news channels crying conspiracy—please let that be confined to the moon landing. The subject of sexual harassment at the workplace requires sensitivity and responsibility. Please do not belittle such a cause.

I believe women are ready to speak and to seek justice. But a survivor’s faith and hope are interred in the law of the land and its justice-delivery system. The Honourable Supreme Court is regarded as the protector of these. The system needs to comply with due process. Let it be followed. Let justice be served.