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Pachauri granted anticipatory bail
A court here on Saturday granted anticipatory bail to noted
environmentalist R.K. Pachauri in a sexual harassment case and rejected
the police plea for his custody.
Additional Sessions Judge Raj
Kumar Tripathi directed Pachauri to furnish a personal bond of Rs.50,000
and a surety of like amount as he rejected Delhi Police's plea seeking
his custody and stay on the interim protection granted to him in the
case.
The Delhi Police has requested the vacation of an interim
stay on Pachauri's arrest, alleging that he was "influencing witnesses"
and "hampering investigations".
The court observed that the
investigating agency is trying to play with the personal liberty of
accused by seeking custodial interrogation even without giving him
opportunity for joining the investigation.
Admittedly, no notice
for joining the investigation has been served upon accused till date,
it noted, adding the police machinery is acting in violation of the apex
court guidelines.
"Considering the aforesaid facts into account,
nature of allegations levelled against accused and totality of the
facts and circumstances of the case, this court finds the present one as
a fit case to give anticipatory bail to accused," the court said, but
asked Pachauri to join the investigation and not to threaten or
intimidate the complainant and other witnesses.
The court has
earlier directed him to neither visit the premises of The Energy and
Resources Institute (TERI) and not to leave the country without
permission and on Saturday, maintained the same condition.
Pachauri,
who had last month stepped down as chairperson of the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has denied the
allegations against him but also proceeded on leave from TERI, where he
was director general.
He is facing a complaint of alleged
harassment by a woman research analyst who has also lodged a police
case. Citing several texts, emails, and WhatsApp messages as evidence,
the complainant accused Pachauri of sexually harassing her soon after
she joined the TERI in September 2013.