Mumbai: Pointing out that there was a delay of one-year in filing the police complaint while considering the report from the woman's workplace, a sessions court granted pre-arrest bail to six of her colleagues, including two women.
The court also remarked that the 42-year-old complainant took advantage of sexual harassment provisions. The woman had alleged that one of the men had groped her, some others had threatened to defame her, while two other female peers had wrongfully confined her.
She then lodged a complaint at the Bhoiwada police station under the Indian Penal Code sections 354 (criminal force of assault to outrage a woman'smodesty), 354A (sexual harassment) and 354D (stalking).
Seeking anticipatory bail, one of her colleagues had stated in his plea that he had been falsely implicated in a bogus case that the woman had filed to avenge her colleagues for not extending her tenure. He claimed she had misused the police machinery for her ulterior motives.
The court considered the report of the internal committee, which said that the woman had filed the complaint on her last day at work as her contractual tenure with the research institute was not extended. The report further said that she didn't appear before the committee after making the complaint.
