The Madras High Court has stayed all further proceedings pursuant to a sexual harassment complaint against S Ravi Selvan, Commissioner of GST and Central Excise in Chennai. The complaint was lodged by a woman Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer accusing him of sexually harassing her, but he had refuted the allegations and accused the complainant of filing a motivated complaint against him.
Justice Paresh Upadhyay and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy granted the injunction while entertaining an appeal from Ravi, challenging the orders of a single judge. "We find prima facie that there is substance in the grievances voiced by the writ petitioner against the respondents and therefore he needs to be protected. Interim relief as prayed for is therefore granted. Accordingly it is ordered that, during pendency of this appeal, all proceedings pursuant to the complaint of the fourth respondent (woman officer) dated May 24 this year, shall remain stayed," the bench said.
The complainant had alleged that the first instance of sexual harassment took place in December of 2020. However, denying the allegations, Ravi, in a letter to the chairman of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, said that it was a motivated complaint filed by the complainant to evade proceedings of misconduct that he had initiated against her in an alleged tax evasion case from 2019. Ravi had been suspended by the Union Ministry of Finance in July, as an Internal Committee looked into the complaint of sexual harassment.
(With PTI inputs)