Pachauri removed as TERI chief

This comes days after Pachauri re-joined office at the helm after getting an order from local court permitting him to attend all TERI offices, barring the headquarters and Gurgaon office.

The 74-year-old will be replaced at the Delhi-based think tank by Ajay Mathur, who heads the government’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency, TERI said in a statement after a meeting of its governing council.

Significantly, the Teri statement also mentioned that Mr Pachauri had “led and built Teri over the last 34 years from a concept to a major, financially autonomous, professionally dynamic organisation on the global stage”.

But at TERI, Pachauri was permitted to go on leave pending an internal investigation. “He should have been asked to step down in February 2015, when the complaint was made, so that there could have been an internal complaint committee inquiry and a proper investigation”, Vrinda Grover, a lawyer and a human rights activist, said. Pachauri has denied the allegations.

The statement from the governing council sought to portray the change as one stemming from a succession planning process that has been in motion since September 2014, or to say that it has nothing to do with the sexual harassment charges against the 75-year-old outgoing DG.

In its report, ICC mentions that it has been subject to a hostile environment with pressure and intimidation from “certain individuals within the organization”. “Police have refused to take the proof on document”, she stated. The governing council members faced criticism that they wouldn’t have allowed this to happen in their own companies.

It’s a point to be noted that Pachauri never resigned as Director-General of the world famous NGO.

They eventually did on 23 July.

Countering this contention, the former TERI chief said there was “nothing on record to suggest that free and fair investigation is not possible in the present case”.

Earlier, a trial court on March 21, granted anticipatory bail to Pachauri.

“There is a odd hierarchy in the minds of Indian men”, Mehndiratta said. When Pachauri returned to TERI this week, the internal committee wrote to the Ministry of Women and Child Development seeking clarification on the issue of protection for its members and witnesses in similar cases.