Delhi HC reserves judgment in RK Pachauri’s anticipatory bail

A Single Bench of the Delhi High Court today reserved order in a petition filed by a female employee of TERI, in which she had sought for cancellation of anticipatory bail granted to former TERI Chief RK Pachauri..The employee had levelled sexual harassment charges against Pachauri, alleging that he had harassed her since September 2013. Pursuant to registration of a first information report (FIR), Pachauri had successfully moved the trial court for grant of anticipatory bail. The anticipatory bail had been granted upon the condition that Pachauri should not enter the premises of TERI and also join the investigation as and when required to do so..The sexual harassment saga that has seen many twists and turns along the way, brought up yet another angle recently. As reported by Economic Times, a former researcher from TERI, Rahul Singh, had filed a police complaint on January 12 on how he was ‘coaxed’ by senior TERI officials to approach the victim with an offer to ‘settle’ the issue outside Court. This development was revealed in a status report filed by the Delhi Police before the Bench today..The status report, a copy of which is with Bar & Bench, specifically says that TERI Director Sanjai Joshi had conceded during interrogation that he had indeed spoken to Singh, who was a friend of the victim, for an out-of-court settlement..The report also mentions the interrogation of TERI’s area convenor, Reena Singh and how she categorically denied having any talks of settlement with Singh. To that extent, even Joshi has admitted in the report that his conversation with Rahul Singh was only ‘casual’ and initiated with an intent to ‘save the image’ of TERI in the public domain..The victim’s advocate, Prashant Mendiratta argued before the Bench on how the Investigating Officer had failed to inform the Court on January 13 about Rahul Singh’s complaint [which was filed a day prior i.e. on January 12] and the victim came to know about this development only through media reports. Singh’s complaint, Mendiratta submitted, was a reasonable premise to conclude that Pachauri was at the helm of affairs at TERI and was likely to directly/indirectly influence witnesses..Senior Advocate Ramesh Gupta, who appeared for Pachauri, submitted that the victim was trying to ‘sensationalize the case’ and even the status report did not mention that Pachauri had pressurized anyone for the purposes of the investigation..The plea for cancellation of anticipatory bail was moved by the employee citing evidence tampering and influencing of witnesses. She had submitted in her petition that a “free and fair investigation could not be carried out if the accused was allowed to move freely.”