Pachauri Case Highlights the Need to Revisit Vishaka Guidelines

TERI’s attempt to shield RK Pachauri is as repugnant as the crime he committed, writes Shuma Raha.

RK Pachauri, the septuagenarian climate change guru, could easily claim to be a role model for all men who have ever been accused of sexual harassment in the workplace. He is the proverbial comeback guy. Charged with sexually harassing a 29-year-old former colleague at TERI, a non-profit organisation working in the field of energy, environment and sustainable development. Pachauri, who was at the helm of the organisation for 35 years, vanishes for a while, only to pop up again – his position not merely restored, but elevated.

Though he has now gone on leave following a public outcry against his recent promotion as Executive Vice-chairman of TERI, Pachauri’s case demonstrates the woeful lack of seriousness with which allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace are treated even today. It demonstrates, moreover, that though there are now laws to tackle the crime, power and influence can still be a formidable armour for sexual predators in suits.​

Dealing with Harassment at Workplace

• Pachauri’s case demonstrates the lack of seriousness with which allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace are treated.
  
• Statistics show organisations rarely comply with the norm of having an internal complaints committee (ICC).
  
• Even the Supreme Court put in place a grievance redressal mechanism in November 2013.

Status of the Case

Consider the facts of the case. In February 2015, a young female colleague charged Pachauri with having subjected her to sexual harassment over a long period. The weight of the prima facie evidence – the complainant had submitted a raft of compromising WhatsApp messages and emails from him – forcing Pachauri, then Director General of TERI, to go on leave pending the police enquiry.

He also resigned as head of the UN’s prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

By July 2015, however, Pachauri was back at TERI, armed with a Delhi court order to that effect. The report of TERI’s internal complaints committee and any action on it was also stayed by the court. Thereafter, TERI announced that Pachauri would be replaced as Director General by technocrat Ajay Mathur.

Yet, in a jaw-dropping move last week, TERI’s governing council declared that while Mathur was indeed taking over as director, Pachauri was being elevated to the post of Executive Vice-chairman. It set off a firestorm of media outrage and protests by activists and, in the event, the governing council backtracked hastily and Pachauri was forced to go on leave once more.

Reportedly, the Delhi Police too is now ready with a 500-page chargesheet against the former TERI boss.

Laws for Sexual Harassment at Workplace

In the one-step-forward-two-steps-back saga of the sexual harassment case against Pachauri, one thing is clear – there’s a culture of impunity that continues to protect a sexual marauder who straddles a position of power in the workplace. This, in turn begs the question: Are the laws against sexual harassment not being implemented forcefully enough?

As early as 1997, the Supreme Court laid down certain guidelines, known as the Vishaka Guidelines, to deal with cases of sexual harassment in the workplace. In 2013, these guidelines were codified into the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act. The law stipulates that any organisation with more than ten employees must form an internal complaints committee (ICC) to deal with charges of sexual harassment, if any. The committee is to be headed by a woman, at least half of its members are to be women, and it should have one external member from an NGO or a body familiar with issues of sexual harassment.

Legal experts say that after the law was passed, many more companies have set up ICCs to take care of sexual harassment complaints. A study in 2013 by industry body Assocham found that 49 percent of private firms based in Delhi-NCR had formed ICCs, as against 38 percent in Mumbai, 42 percent in Kolkata and 46 percent in Bangalore. Incidentally, it was not until November 2013 that the Supreme Court set up its own grievance redressal mechanism for sexual harassment.

While one may presume that compliance has improved since then, there seems to be a clear dissonance between complying with the law in letter, and abiding by its spirit. For the law aims not only to provide a grievance redress mechanism, but also ensures that a woman who has mustered courage to press a charge of sexual harassment is not victimised, or her career jeopardised in any way.

Taking a Cue from the Pachauri Episode

For example, though TERI did have an ICC in place, Pachauri’s complainant reportedly came under monumental pressure to withdraw her allegation. In an open letter she wrote last week, the complainant said that many of her colleagues had been asked to persuade her to withdraw the complaint. Unable to bear the pressure, she quit the organisation last year.

Many more women who have faced, or are facing, sexual harassment at the workplace are speaking out now. The law has given them ‘agency’ in that sense. In 2013, a law intern accused former Supreme Court judge Ashok Kumar Ganguly of having subjected her to inappropriate sexual advances. The same year, and in a case that grabbed international headlines, Tarun J Tejpal, then editor of Tehelka magazine, was charged with sexually assaulting a young colleague. Tejpal spent several months in jail and the case is still going on in the courts.

Sexual harassment in the workplace is all about the abuse of power – the power of a man over a woman who is usually in a position subordinate to him. Any effort to reward or bolster the power of someone who stands accused of the crime – as TERI’s governing council did in the case of its former boss Pachauri last week – is as repugnant as the crime itself. Moreover, it makes a mockery of the law against sexual harassment in the workplace.

One hopes that the good people who run TERI have finally got that message.

(Shuma Raha is a senior journalist based in Delhi.)

Also read:
500-Page Chargesheet Against Pachauri Includes Over 6,000 Texts
Another RK Pachauri Sexual Harassment Victim Breaks Her Silence