R.K. Pachauri's lawyer Ashish Dixit on Wednesday rejected allegations that a new post had been created at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to accommodate his client.
Talking to ANI, Dixit said that Pachauri had, in fact, been demoted, and not promoted as was being claimed by media reports.
"This is completely false, this post is in existence since the inception of TERI, which was somewhere in 1970s. JRD Tata used to be the chairman and Darbari Seth used to be the vice-chairman. This post is there since then. As of now, no one was occupying this. And, there is other allegation that this is some kind of promotion," Dixit told ANI.
"It is not a promotion; it is rather a demotion, which is unjust, because on the basis of the complaint Pachauri was the chairman of the Governing Council and the Director General. As of now, he is only the executive vice-chairman. He is no longer the chairman or Director General. For us, it's a demotion and it is something which is injustice to Pachauri," he added.
Plaintiff's counsel Prashant Mehndiratta had on Tuesday questioned TERI for "promoting" Pachauri to the post of executive vice chairman.
Expressing disappointment over TERI's decision, Mehndiratta said that the post of executive vice-president was created to make Pachauri 'comfortable'.
He also criticised TERI for their apathy towards victim, and said they had not expressed their support to the victim even once.
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The victim had earlier slammed the governing council of TERI for promoting Pachauri to executive vice chairman, saying that it was a 'shameless act which made her flesh crawl'.
In an open letter, the complainant said that it was despicable that a man who stands booked on charges of sexual harassment at the workplace, stalking and criminal intimidation had been promoted.
Pachauri has been charged with sexual harassment by a woman researcher who used to work directly under the veteran climate scientist and later resigned from her job as she felt 'let down' by TERI. She has now moved to another organisation.