Plea seeks CBI probe in suicide of PSU employee; SC issues notice to Telangana govt

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Telangana government on a petition filed by the mother of a BHEL employee in Hyderabad seeking a CBI probe into the death of her daughter, who allegedly committed suicide due to sexual harassment at her workplace.

A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar issued notice to the Telangana government after hearing the petition filed by the victim's mother, through advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava.

The mother of the sexually harassed victim, who had allegedly committed suicide, had filed a writ petition before the apex court on July 5 and sought directions to urgently transfer the investigation in the matter from Telangana Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Srivastava, in the petition, said that the petitioner's deceased daughter was a bright, young and intelligent finance professional, having other qualifications. The woman had joined Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Hyderabad in 2009, at the age of 23 years.

There was not even an iota of complaint against her work or against her mental behaviour during her long association with BHEL, Srivastava said in his petition.

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

It also said that the deceased woman had 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.

Instead, the Telangana Police had illegally given clean chit to the accused persons, in their latest report of June 2, 2020, filed before the National Commission of Women (NCW), the petition submitted seeking a CBI enquiry into the matter.

( With inputs from ANI )