#MeToo storm in AIR, 9 complainants sacked

With the #Me-Too campaign in the country gaining in strength, nine women employees of All India Radio’s Shahdol station in Madhya Pradesh have gone public with their complaints of sexual harassment against the assistant director (programme) of the station, Ratnakar Bharti.

Despite a police complaint against him and the internal complaint committee of AIR declaring him guilty a year ago, Bharti remains stationed, at present, at the AIR headquarters in New Delhi, though apparently under the “strictest vigilance watch”.

Meanwhile, the services of the women — all casual broadcasters — have since been terminated. Similar instances of sexual harassment have also been received from Dharamshala, Obra, Sagar, Rampur, Kurukshetra and Delhi stations.


Sex harassment plaints, sacking of women not linked: AIR DG

In each case, the AIR employee union has claimed that while the accused have been let off with just a warning, complainants — all casual broadcasters — have been asked to leave.

Speaking to TOI, AIR director general Fayyaz Shehryar said, “Every incident that has been reported has been probed by the internal complaints committee. In the Shahdol instance, after the ICC verdict, Ratnakar Bharti was transferred immediately from Shahdol and he remains under the strictest vigilance watch at DG headquarters.”

Bharti is also facing proceedings under Central Civil Services Pension Rules notified by the department of personnel and training, where he may be compulsorily retired.

Shehryar, however, denied there was any link between the lodging of a complaint against Bharti and the services of the women being terminated. The Shahdol case along with similar complaints from six other AIR stations, has become the basis on which the AIR trade union has formally moved Prasar Bharati chief executive Shashi Shekhar Vempati, urging him to take the strictest possible action against the accused persons.