Investigating officer appointed, status report filed in BHEL woman official suicide case: Telangana govt to SC

The Telangana government on Wednesday submitted to the Supreme Court that a senior officer has been appointed as investigating officer and a status report has been submitted to it on February 7 in the BHEL woman official suicide case.

The petition was filed by the mother of the BHEL sexually harassed victim, who allegedly committed suicide later, seeking a CBI investigation in the case.

"A senior officer has been appointed as an Investigating Officer, in terms of Court's previous order and a status report has been submitted on February 7," the Telangana government submitted to the top court bench, headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar.

The apex court also allowed the prayer of the Telangana government, which sought some more time to complete the investigation in the case, and adjourned the matter for four weeks.

The Supreme Court had earlier directed the Telangana government to immediately entrust some senior official to further investigate the matter pertaining to the BHEL sexual harassment victim case and had deferred the hearing for four weeks.

The mother of the victim, who was working as a finance officer in the BHEL, had moved the apex court through her lawyer, Alakh Alok Srivastava, seeking a CBI inquiry into the death of her daughter.

The victim had allegedly committed suicide due to repeated sexual harassment at her workplace at the BHEL Hyderabad office, the mother claimed in her petition.

The mother of the victim had filed the writ petition before the top court on July 5, 2020.

She sought a direction to urgently transfer the criminal investigation in the case to the CBI from Telangana police.

Srivastava, in the petition, stated that the petitioner's deceased daughter was a bright, young, and intelligent finance professional, having other qualifications.

She had joined BHEL in 2009, at the young age of 23 years, and served BHEL till her last breath (till October 17, 2019), with utmost dedication and devotion to her duties. There was not even an iota of complaint against her work or against her mental behaviour during her long association with the BHEL, read the petition.

She was sexually harassed, molested, stalked, mentally tortured, and attempted to be raped by her own supervisor and by her own office colleagues at BHEL, Hyderabad, which forced her to ultimately commit suicide on October 17, 2019, at the young age of merely 33, the petition claimed.

The suicide note of the deceased and her last telephonic conversation with her sister, categorically established that her own supervisor and office colleagues subjected her to an extreme level of sexual, physical, and mental harassment and attempted to rape her, due to which she was forced to commit suicide, the petition claimed.

The petition claimed that the deceased daughter of the petitioner categorically stated that attempt to rape and repeated sexual harassment by the main accused, Arther Kishore Kumar, and other co-accused persons, had prompted her to commit suicide.

However, despite this, the Telangana police has not yet arrested the main accused, or any other accused persons and has not conducted their custodial interrogation, it said.

To their surprise, on the contrary, the Telangana police had illegally given a clean chit to the accused persons, in their latest report of June 2, 2020, filed before the National Commission of Women (NCW), the petition claimed and sought a CBI inquiry into the entire case to unravel the truth.

( With inputs from ANI )