Three years after R K Pachauri was accused of sexual harassment at the workplace by a gutsy female researcher, a Delhi court last week said there was enough material to frame charges against her then boss, who was synonymous with the prestigious TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute). The court made the determination two long years after the Delhi Police filed a 1,400-page chargesheet.
They also filed a supplementary chargesheet last year citing digital evidence in the form of deleted chats between the high-profile accused and the complainant. Even before the chargesheet was filed, TERI’s internal complaints committee, mandated under the SC’s Vishakha guidelines, had confirmed Pachauri was guilty of sexual harassment. The panel also noted the huge pressures it was subjected to internally to give Pachauri a clean chit.
That the law works differently for people in high places came out starkly in the past few weeks when the Kerala Police took its time to proceed against Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who has been accused of rape by a nun. Hemmed in by intense pressure from a section of nuns and the society, Mulakkal has since agreed to present himself before the police.
Pachauri demonstrated that clout and more in 2015 by quickly getting anticipatory bail and persuading a local court to issue a media gag order, though it was quashed later. He used dilatory tactics to delay the internal probe that had to be completed within 90 days. So far, Pachauri has managed to escape arrest, which even Tehelka’s then editor-in-chief, the high-profile Tarun Tejpal, couldn’t avoid. Tejpal was under arrest for six months after allegations of sexual assault by a female colleague. He is now out on bail.
While the Delhi court took two years to frame charges against Pachauri, the trial against Tejpal began barely six months ago. The message it sends of a lumbering Indian judicial machinery is not at all comforting. Such cases ought to be fast-tracked to help make the workplace safe for women. Justice delayed is justice denied.