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NEW DELHI: Months after being accused of molesting a colleague, RK Pachauri of The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) continued to be a part of the organization, and has now been made its vice chairman.
The post has been specially designed and created to accommodate Pachauri who will wield executive level powers. It is not yet confirmed whether he will have to share those with the Director General, also newly appointed.
Last year, a woman colleague of Pachauri who worked at the Lodhi Road office of TERI had accused him of consistently stalking her in person and through SMSs. When the incident came to light, Pachauri was asked not to attend office so that he was not in position to influence the employees and hamper investigation.
The young colleague had then resumed her job at TERI’s Gurgaon office.
The move to promote Pachauri remains unexplained by the think-tank’s Governing Council, which doesn’t seem to be very convincing in the email which was circulated to announce the decision. “This is to inform that Dr Ajay Mathur has joined as director general of TERI from today. The Governing Council of TERI has appointed Dr R K Pachauri as the Executive Vice Chairman with immediate effect,” it reads, without mentioning any development related to the ongoing harassment case.
After the incident, Pachauri, then Director General of TERI and Chairperson of Inter-Government Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), was made to resign from both the posts. Ajay Mathur from the Bureau of Energy Efficiency had replaced him.
Among the members of the Governing council of TERI are Deepak Parekh, and Naina Lal Kidwai, Hemendra Kothari, who are well known in the private business sphere of India.
