Casual talks for settlement in Pachauri case: Police tell Delhi High Court

New Delhi: An out-of-court settlement was proposed to the victim of the alleged sexual harrassment case involving TERI's newly-appointed executive vice chairman R K Pachauri, investigators on Thursday told Delhi High Court which reserved its order on her plea in the sexual harrassment case.

The Delhi Police, which was asked to file a status report on the progress of its investigation, said that TERI Director Sanjai Joshi conceded during interrogation that he has indeed talked to victim's friend for an out-of-court settlement.

The status report was filed in the matter in which the victim, a former TERI employee, has sought quashing of anticipatory bail of Pachauri in the case. The High Court also reserved its order on the victim's plea in the sexual harassment case.

The status report also said that TERI's area convener Reena Singh was also interrogated in her office and she had stated that she had never spoken about any settlement and was only giving her comments. Both Joshi and Reena Singh maintained that their talks was casual, the report said.

In the report, it was clarified that Joshi was categorical that Pachauri never pressurised him to talk about out-of-court settlement. "Director TERI Sanjai Joshi joined investigation and he was interrogated.

He stated that he talked with victim's friend, it was a very casual conversations during his visit to his workstation in TERI. It was stated only to save the image of organisation before the media," the police said in its report filed before the bench of Justice S P Garg.

The report further said that Joshi had also stated that he has never been asked by Pachauri or any other person of TERI to talk for settling the matter and he had not put pressure on the complainant's friend.

Police also told the court that another TERI official was out of country on an official tour and he will be examined after he returns to India.

The victim's friend had filed a complaint with the police on January 12 alleging that senior directors and area convenor of TERI had approached him to get the victim settle the matter out of court.