Creepy men in the corner office: Sexual predators in the workplace

K. Pachauri is only the latest in a list of men who abuse their positions to sexually harass women colleagues. What is with these men – often old, married and with children the age of their victims — that drives them to become sexual predators?

R.K. Pachauri

A man who once held aloft a Nobel Prize is not someone you expect to be facing charges of sexual harassment. But there it is. A 29-year-old research analyst at The Energy and Resources Institute has accused its director-general R.K. Pachauri of inappropriate sexual advances and stalking, even after she urged him to stop.

The woman has submitted several text and Whatsapp messages to prove the extent of the harassment and they’re all now out on the Net. Pachauri, who is also chairman of the Intergovernmental Plan on Climate Change, has, however, denied the allegations, maintained that his computer and phone were hacked, and is seeking anticipatory bail.

The complaint has provoked another woman who worked at TERI in 2005 to come out and issue a statement that she and other women colleagues were recipients of unwelcome sexual advances from Pachauri.

It might interest you to know that this champion against global warming also published a novel titled Return to Almora in 2010. It’s all about an engineer – like himself – and his seemingly insatiable sexual appetite.

Tarun Tejpal

The former editor-in-chief of Tehelka is currently facing trial for sexual assault of a junior colleague who was also a friend of his daughter. His misdemeanours during the Think fest in Goa in November 2013 were said to constitute rape, though Tejpal has sought to portray them as ‘consensual’.

Like Pachauri, Tejpal is a novelist and his book The Alchemy of Desire was nominated for the Bad Sex Award in Britain. Last November, Tejpal was invited to speak at a litfest on ‘The Tyranny of Power’ – you did spot the irony? – public outrage caused the organisers to withdraw the invitation.

Phaneesh Murthy

Phaneesh Murthy is a repeat offender. In 2002 when he was one of the blue-eyed boys at Infosys and head of global sales, he faced charges of sexual harassment and wrongful termination of services from his executive secretary Reka Maximovitch. Infosys settled the lawsuit out of court and Phaneesh Murthy was compelled to quit Infosys, even as he denied the allegations.

At a press conference soon after then Infosys chairman N.R Narayana Murthy said, ‘Phaneesh did not disclose to the company management, as an important functionary, that he had a relationship with Maximovitch and also of the fact that she had filed in the court for a restraining order against him.’ Infosys also paid Phaneesh Murthy over $500,000 as a final settlement.

Not one to be kept down professionally, Phaneesh Murthy went on to form a company that merged with iGate and he became president and CEO.  In May 2013, iGate employee Araceli Roiz accused him of improper sexual conduct and harassment.

Her lawyers said Phaneesh Murthy, who was in a relationship with her, had asked her to have an abortion or leave her job as head of investor relations. iGate forced Phaneesh Murthy to quit on account of violating company policy.

He, in turn, slapped a defamation and breach-of-contract case against iGate and wrapped up a settlement of $4.6 million.  Earlier this month Phaneesh Murthy announced that “All matters have been resolved”.

Mukund Srinath

Not too soon after the Phaneesh Murthy affair was settled, iGate Technologies found itself mired in another sexual misconduct case when a former senior executive, Karetha Dodd, filed a sexual harassment case in the US against Mukund Srinath, senior vice president, legal, and corporate secretary at iGate.

Confirming that the case had been filed iGate issued a statement that said, ‘We have completed a thorough investigation into this claim, and have found that it is unequivocally without merit. We intend to vigorously defend this action. iGate has a zero tolerance policy on harassment of any kind, and is committed to maintaining a caring and nurturing workplace.’

David Davidar

In 2010, Lisa Rundle, a former employee of Penguin Canada launched a $523,000 law suit alleging that David Davidar, CEO of the publishing house, had sexually harassed her for three years and even assaulted her during the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009.

Lisa Rundle’s lawyers said Davidar had flooded her with inappropriate text messages and even stalked her. He would also ‘punish’ her by refusing to talk to her at work and excluding her from business meetings. Davidar quit his position and Penguin clarified that he had been asked to go. The matter was settled out of court.

Justice A.K. Ganguly

The judiciary went into a tizzy when a woman lawyer alleged in 2013 that the recently retired Supreme Court judge, A.K. Ganguly, had sexually harassed her when she was an intern.

Questions were raised about why she had come out in the open nearly a year after the alleged incident, but the retired judge was indicted by a committee that probed the allegations.

The committee maintained that he had indeed subjected the woman to ‘unwelcome sexual behaviour’ in December 2012. Justice Ganguly resigned from the West Bengal Human Rights Commission after the decision, but continued to maintain that he was a victim of circumstance.

It is worth remembering, too, that we only know of these sexual predators because some brave woman chose to speak up and expose them. Fear and silence are not the answer.