Ram Vilas Paswan is in trouble after a senior woman member of his Lok Janshakti Party filed a case against him in the Delhi high court alleging harassment.
NEW DELHI: Union chemical, fertilizer and steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan is in trouble after a senior woman member of his Lok Janshakti Party filed a case against him in the Delhi high court alleging harassment following her complaint of sexual harassment against his confidant and officer on special duty (OSD) RP Rathi.
K Kanchana Krishna of Andhra Pradesh has named Paswan a respondent in the case, accusing him of shielding Rathi, preventing an FIR from being registered and influencing the case, besides manipulating materials and inquiry. She has demanded a CBI probe into the matter.
According to Kanchana, Rathi allegedly tried to outrage her modesty and that of Y Supriya, an employee of NTPC, at a hotel in Nagpur in February 2006.
Kanchana had gone there to seek Paswan’s help for Supriya’s transfer. It is alleged that while Paswan duly obliged Surpiya in the transfer matter, Rathi sought sexual favours in return and allegedly “attempted to assault modesty and chastity (of both women)”.
When contacted, Rathi first denied knowledge of any such case being filed in the high court. Later, he said it was an old matter and the complaint had been withdrawn.
But when this correspondent insisted that the matter had been listed for hearing in the Delhi high court on November 29 and read out justice SN Dhingra’s orders of that date, Rathi said: “These are all politically-motivated complaints filed only to get publicity.”
Kanchana, however, is not willing to buy this argument and in her writ, has also accused the National Commission for Women (NCW) of not taking appropriate action and conducting proper inquiry despite having filed a complaint with it in March 2006.
Instead of taking cognizance, the NCW “malafidely, deliberately, extraneously and unfairly under the influence of Paswan decided to send the complaint back to the ministry of steel”, she says.
The committee constituted to look into the matter could not proceed since neither the complainants, nor the accused, were employees of the ministry. Hence, the matter was referred back to the NCW.
More than a year hence, the probe is still on. “We have recorded the statements of both the parties and are looking into the matter,” said NCW chairperson Girija Vyas. However, Vyas could not explain why the investigation is still not over even though it is more than a year into the complaint.
Incidentally, the high court has summoned the NCW during the next hearing. Kanchana claims she had no option but to approach the courts on August 13, 2007, after neither the NCW nor the steel ministry’s inquiry committee could provide her justice.
p_vineeta@dnaindia.net
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