NEW DELHI -- A Delhi court today paved the way for climate scientist, Rajendra Pachauri, who is accused of sexual harassment, to travel abroad including Paris, where the U.N. Climate Change Conference will kick off on 28 November.
Pachauri, 75, is facing investigations for sexually harassing a 29-year-old woman researcher, who worked with him at The Energy Research Institute (TERI). She recently quit the think-tank, accusing it of treating her "in the worst possible manner."
Metropolitan Magistrate Shivani Chauhan has allowed Pachauri, who is currently the Director General of TERI, to travel to Bolivia, Saudi Arabia and Paris in the coming weeks. "There is nothing on the record which shows that the accused has not cooperated with the investigation," she said in the order.
The court order said that Pachauri had sought permission to "various conferences" in Paris from December 4 to 9, but it does not specially mention the U.N. meeting. His office did not respond to HuffPost India's query about whether Pachauri would attend
COP 21.
In previous years, Pachauri has attended the annual meet on climate change as the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. scientific panel, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with climate change activist Al Gore.
Pachauri has been asked to furnish security of four lakh rupees, and writing an undertaking that he will make himself available for the investigation when required.
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