By PTI
NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has said that there can be no stigma attached to former TERI chief R K Pachauri due to an alleged sexual harassment case since the prosecution could not prove its case while he was alive.
Pachauri died in February 2020 while his revision petition against an order to put him on trial in the case was pending before a court.
The case was abated after his death.
Special Judge Mohinder Virat made the observation while dismissing a plea by Pachauri’s son through advocate Ashish Dixit, who had sought a decision on his father’s petition “on merits just to remove the stigma of this present criminal case on the deceased revisionist.”
The court said the application filed by Pachauri’s son was not maintainable.
“In the present case, the revisionist had died before conclusion of the trial against him. As such the prosecution could not prove its case qua the accused herein. Hence, there can be no stigma on the deceased Dr R K Pachauri in the given set of circumstances,” the court said.
Environmentalist Pachauri, a former TERI chief under whose chairmanship the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, passed away on February 13, 2020 after a prolonged cardiac ailment.
He was 79.
Police had filed an FIR against Pachauri on charges of sexual harassment under sections 354, 354(a), 354(d) (molestation) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC at Lodhi Colony Police Station, on a complaint filed against him by a former woman research analyst.
He was granted anticipatory bail by the trial court on March 21, 2015.
Police later filed a charge sheet in the case against him before the court for the alleged offences under several sections including 354 (outraging woman’s modesty), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).
