Former UN climate change panel chief, Rajendra Pachauri, will face trial in a sexual harassment case, an Indian court ruled on Friday, September 14, 2018.
The court said there was enough material to proceed against Pachauri, according to a lawyer representing the complainant.
Pachauri, 78, resigned from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February 2015 after his colleague, a researcher at The Energy and Resources Institute, made allegations of sexual harassment
The woman, then aged 29, alleged Pachauri made physical advances and sent her lewd emails and text messages after she started working at the institute in 2013.
Pachauri has denied all allegations against him.
As head of IPCC, Pachauri received a Nobel Prize, jointly awarded to the panel and former U.S. vice president Al Gore in 2007 for their work on climate change.
An internal committee at the woman’s research institute had found him guilty of misconduct.
The next hearing in the case when charges are expected to be framed is scheduled on Oct. 20.
