A Tamil Nadu court on Friday convicted former Director General of Police Rajesh Das for sexually harassing a woman officer, NDTV reported.
The court also sentenced him to three years in prison and fined him Rs 10,000. He was, however, granted bail for 30 days to file an appeal against the decision.
An unidentified member of the prosecution team told NDTV that statements of 68 persons including, police officials, were recorded in the case.
The complainant, a woman Indian Police Service officer, had accused Das of behaving inappropriately with her in his vehicle in February 2021. The incident reportedly took place while the woman was on duty during the visit of Edappadi Palaniswami, the chief minister at the time, to some districts in central Tamil Nadu.
A first information report had named Das and Chengalpattu Superintendent of Police D Kannan, who was accused of preventing the woman from filing an official complaint. Das and Kannan had been booked under Section 354 (outraging modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code along with sections 3 and 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act.
Das was subsequently put on “compulsory waiting”, which meant that he was not given any assignments for a specific time period.
In March 2021, the Madras High Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter. It had said it shuddered to think what would have happened if the complainant was an officer of a lower rank.
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