Complainant in sexual harassment case against RK Pachauri case quits Teri

NEW DELHI: The 29-year-old complainant in the sexual harassment case against eminent scientist RK Pachauri has resigned from Delhi based think tank Teri, claiming she has been "mistreated" in the "worst possible manner". The research analyst, in her resignation submitted early this week, has hit out at Teri for creating what she terms as a "hostile environment" which "only escalated and showed no signs of subsiding whatsoever".

She has also expressed her anguish over the conduct of Teri’s governing council. "The governing council too let me down in an unprecedented way," she said in the resignation letter. The letter goes on to say that she "refuses to be associated with an organization" which did "nothing to ensure" that her "career is not harmed". Instead, the organisation "harmed me mentally, professionally and financially".

"TERI failed to uphold my interests as an employee, let alone protecting them," she has alleged. Teri "instead protected Pachauri and provided him with full immunity, despite being held guilty of sexual harassment at the workplace" by its own inquiry committee. Expressing her regret at the actions of the governing council, she has stated: "The council could not even suspend a man pending inquiry and took no action despite the indictment".

Tendering her resignation, she has stated that her "work profile" was changed and the organization "played deaf to my requests for not doing so". It further reads that she was given "zero explanation" for changing her profile. "I only got vague responses", it reads. "I tender my resignation without any prejudice to my rights to claim my salary, damages and other dues/costs for the gross misconduct and mental torture meted out to me at the workplace, apart from taking all pending litigation to their logical conclusion," she has said.