A woman, who has lodged a sexual harassment complaint against former TERI chief R K Pachauri, today assured a Delhi court that she will not speak to the media about the case until arguments on framing of charges are heard.
The submission was made before Metropolitan Magistrate Charu Gupta in response to an application moved by Pachauri seeking to restrain the complainant from speaking to the media about him and the case.
"The counsel for the complainant (woman) has assured that that he would communicate and endeavour that the victim should not speak to media in regard to the case till argument on charge are heard," the court said.
It also issued a notice to the investigating officer (IO) for not complying with its earlier order, asking to provide copies of certain documents filed along with the charge sheet to Pachauri, after former TERI chief's counsel Ashish Dixit submitted that he was yet to receive the same.
"Counsel for the accused submits that he has not yet been supplied with the annexure to the FSL report... It is stated that these annexure were filed by the IO. As such the IO is directed to supply these annexure to the accused within 15 days," the court said.
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The court has now posted the matter for argument on charge on July 19.
The court had on January 10, directed the IO to supply copies of certain documents, including emails and photos filed in the charge sheet, to Pachauri in the case of alleged sexual harassment lodged against him by his ex-colleague.
The former TERI chief had earlier secured an order from an additional district judge that made it mandatory for media houses to publish or telecast the coverage of the case with a title that "In any court the allegations have not been proved and they may not be correct."
The interim order had also said "when such information is published in any page of a magazine or report, then it should be in middle of the page in bold letters and it should be five times larger than the font in which the article is being published."
In the order that was passed on January 3, the court noted that Pachauri's counsel has received a copy of the statements of 13 women employees of TERI which were recorded by the police as a part of the investigation.
The court also took on record a copy of the transcript of a June 2, 2017 TV interview of the woman complainant which was played before it and heard part arguments on the application seeking to restrain the woman from interacting with media.
Over 1,400-page charge sheet was filed by Delhi Police on March 1, 2016, saying there was "sufficient evidence" against Pachauri that he had sexually harassed, stalked and threatened the complainant.
A supplementary charge sheet was filed in March 2017 after the police said it retrieved several deleted emails and chats exchanged between the accused and the complainant.
The final report had said that deleted SMS and WhatsApp chats, text messages, retrieved from the cell phones, computer hard disks and other devices, were "not fabricated".
The charge sheet, which was filed a year after the former research analyst of TERI lodged the complaint, said Pachauri had committed offences under sections 354 of the IPC by outraging her modesty, 354A by making physical contact, unwelcome and sexually coloured remarks, 354D as he followed her through emails and messages.
Besides these, sections 506 (threat) and 509 (teasing and using vulgar gesture and actions) of the IPC were also included.
Pachauri has denied all the allegations against him.
On February 13, 2015 an FIR was registered against him and he was granted anticipatory bail in the case on March 21.
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