Indian police said Tuesday they had charged the former head of the UN climate change panel Rajendra Pachauri with sexual harassment, following a complaint by an ex-colleague at an environmental think-tank.
Police brought the charges against Pachauri in a Delhi trial court, more than a year after a female employee in her late twenties filed a complaint accusing him of sending inappropriate texts and emails.
“We have filed the charge sheet today and the court will decide when to begin the hearing,” investigating officer Virender Dalal told reporters.
Police have charged Pachauri, 75, with four counts including sexual assault, harassment and criminal intimidation, according to the complainant’s lawyer.
“Police have filed the nearly 1,400-page charge sheet in the trial court,” lawyer Prashant Mendiratta said.
“We will need time to examine the entire document but it states that they have found prima facie evidence,” he added.
Pachauri, who is on bail, denies the sexual harassment charges and has said his emails and mobile phone were hacked.
His lawyer Ashish Dixit said his client would defend the charges and stressed the case still had a long way to go.
“Obviously he is maintaining his innocence. The charge sheet doesn’t make any difference because he has not given his side of the story,” Dixit said.
“The charge sheet is based on the complainant’s statements. Arguments have not been heard from the other side,” he said.
Pachauri, a leading voice on the dangers of global warming, was forced to quit as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in February 2015 after his colleague at the think-tank filed her complaint.
