Another former employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), a foreign national, has alleged “sexual harassment” by the institute’s executive vice-chairman, R.K. Pachauri, when she was working as his secretary in 2008.
This is the third such complaint against Mr. Pachauri, who is facing similar charges from two former colleagues, one of whom filed a case against him last year and the other came forward to reveal her ordeal earlier this year. “I was 0% surprised when I first read reports that an employee of TERI had filed a criminal complaint against R.K. Pachauri for sexually harassing her,” the woman said in an email to her lawyer.
The woman wrote that she decided to make public the harassment she faced after the U.K.-based newspaper, The Guardian , published an article headlined ‘Rajendra Pachauri speaks out over sexual harassment claims’ on March 26, 2016.
She also wrote in her email about “the absurdity of his [Mr. Pachauri’s] claims of computer-hacking and/or anti-environment conspiracy lie exposed.”
Speaking to The Hindu , one of her lawyers, Ratna Appnender, said: “In February 2015, she [the foreign national] had contacted advocate Vrinda Grover after coming to know that an FIR had been registered against Mr. Pachauri for sexual harassment.
She indicated her willingness to give her statement to the police last year itself. However, we haven’t heard anything from the police so far.”
Mr. Pachauri’s lawyer Ashish Dixit refused to comment and wanted to see the statement issued by the woman.
The woman wrote: “I can very much relate to what the other woman wrote in her statement. When I was 19, I worked for 4 months (end of 2008) at TERI as Pachauri’s secretary. Pachauri’s claim that his computer was hacked is totally false. From my point of view, this is right in line with his character, and not a case of his computer being hacked. I think it is important for me to now make my statement public so that people know the truth about Pachauri.” She said that from the beginning she “noted a big difference in the way Pachauri behaved around me, compared to how other Indian men behaved with me.”
“Pachauri would put his hands on my waist repeated times, he would hug me longer than felt comfortable, kissed me on the cheek and inquired about my private life. I started feeling insecure about his motives for hiring me, and felt extremely uncomfortable being around him,” the email read.
The woman also claimed that Mr. Pachauri used to call her during non-working hours and on holidays and “and on arriving [in office], it became evident that he had no specific task for me.”
“The tipping point came when he said that I should join him in his summer house outside of the city for the weekend. It would have just been him and me there, since he made it very clear that his wife was out of town. At this point, I felt genuinely scared of what his motives for inviting me over were, and I decided to speak out and set a firm limit,” she wrote.
The woman also said that when she spoke about her experience she found out from many sources that this was nothing new and Mr. Pachauri had been involved in many similar situations.
“My contract, which was for a period of 1 year, was abruptly terminated after… just 4 months. I felt very relieved that I would not have to face Pachauri’s sexual harassment any longer. I left New Delhi a few weeks after this and returned to Europe,” she wrote.
