BATTLING SEXUAL HARASSMENT CHARGES, PACHAURI FINALLY QUITS TERI
Former UN climate panel chief Rajendra Pachauri said Thursday that he quit his Indian think-tank to pursue other interests, at a time when he is facing allegations of sexual harassment.
The 75-year-old faces several police charges including sexual harassment, after a female employee at his New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) filed a complaint last year accusing him of sending inappropriate texts and emails.
Pachauri announced Thursday that his term had ended last month, which he had been heading for more than three decades.
“My term as a Member of the Governing Council ended on March 31, 2016,” Pachauri said in a statement sent to AFP by his lawyer Ashish Dixit. “I felt that it was time for me to move away and get engaged in other interests which I have harboured over the past few years for activities at the global level,” he added.
Pachauri, a leading voice on the dangers of global warming, was forced to quit as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in February 2015 after a colleague in her late twenties filed a complaint against him.
A court had barred him from entering the institute’s office for months following the complaint. It later allowed him to return to work while still on bail, on the condition that he steer clear of his alleged victim.
His appointment as TERI executive vice-chairman in February caused outrage, forcing the institute, where he had worked for 35 years, to put him on indefinite leave.
Pachauri denies the complainant’s accusations and has said his emails and mobile phone were hacked. The police charges against him are due to be heard by a Delhi court on Saturday.
A FEMALE EMPLOYEE AT TERI FILED A COMPLAINT LAST YEAR ACCUSING PACHAURI OF SENDING INAPPROPRIATE TEXTS AND EMAILS