The highly regarded Teri (The Energy and Resources Institute) removed Rajendra Kumar Pachauri from the post of director-general and appointed a technocrat in his place. As an institution, it has done the right thing considering the extreme situation created by Mr Pachauri facing charges of sexual harassment that need a thorough probe. The decision to replace him may have come late since the complaint was filed last February and Mr Pachauri also has been on leave from the UN’s Nobel Prize-winning governmental panel on climate change (IPCC) for a long time now.
There may have been legal technicalities, like the court staying the operation of the report of the internal complaints committee. The court ruling last week by which he could attend office at one Teri venue but not at another was not conducive to a proper atmosphere being maintained, what with a woman’s honour at stake and Mr Pachauri having to clear his name in a proper probe.
For his part, then, it would have been wiser to have stepped aside until a probe was completed. Of course, what happens to him if he is proved innocent is difficult to comprehend, although we have before us the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, chief of IMF and strong contender for the 2012 French presidency, who lost everything in what transpired to be a false case of sexual assault and rape. Notably, Strauss-Kahn voluntarily resigned his post four days after his arrest and is only now trying to inch his way back into French political space.
