The Nashik Sessions Court has rejected the bail pleas of five accused of religious harassment and forced conversion at the Nashik-based TCS company. During the hearing, one of the victims told the court that two girls had left the city out of fear of the accused. The public prosecutor opposed the bail pleas, citing fears that the accused might abscond, but the court accepted.
The District Sessions Court has dealt a severe blow to the five main accused in the case of alleged hurting of religious sentiments, mental torture, and attempts at forced conversion at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Nashik, Maharashtra. The court rejected the bail applications of Ashwini Chenani, Raza Menon, Asif Ansari, Shahrukh Qureshi, and Tausif Attar and ordered them to remain in jail for the time being.
A court in Nashik, Maharashtra, has denied bail to Ashwini Chainani, site head of TCS and a member of the POSH committee. The court said she “ignored” the victim’s complaint of sexual harassment and forced conversion. By doing so, she “abeted” the crime. On Friday, the court also denied bail to Tausif Attar, Raza Memon, Shahrukh Qureshi, and Asif Ansari in the case.
In his detailed order, which became available on Saturday, Additional Sessions Judge V.V. Kathare said that Chainani’s “silence and insensitivity actually contributed to the toxic atmosphere at the workplace.”
Chainani was a member of the company’s Internal Committee, which was formed under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, commonly known as the POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) Act.
The judge stated that, on the contrary, the applicant’s (Chainani’s) actions indicate that he accused the complainant of seeking undue publicity and urged her to forgive the accused. It should be noted that Chainani was arrested in this case on April 10th on charges of incitement to commit a crime under the Indian Penal Code.
Defense lawyers argued that Chainani primarily worked from TCS’s Pune branch and did not directly oversee the day-to-day operations in Nashik. However, the court acknowledged that, as a member of the POSH Committee/Internal Committee, she immediately informed Chainani about the circumstances surrounding the incident.
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