Court allows Pachauri to travel abroad

New Delhi, Sep 15: A court here on Tuesday allowed environmentalist R.K. Pachauri, accused in a sexual harassment case, to visit Kazakhstan to meet its president and ministers on environmental issues.

Metropolitan Magistrate Vandana Jain allowed Pachauri to travel to Kazakhstan from September 17 to 19 to give a presentation on climate change and sustainable development to the president and cabinet ministers of Kazakhastan.

Pachauri's counsel Ashish Dixit told the court the high level set of presentations would also include other participants such as Nobel laureate Mohammed El Baradei and former Costa Rica president Jose Maria Figueres.

After a sexual harassment complaint was filed by a younger colleague, Pachauri stepped down as chairperson of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in February and proceeded on leave from TERI (The Energy Research Institute) as its director general.

A decision was taken to remove Pachauri as head of the non-profit think tank TERI in July. The body's governing council replaced him with Ajay Mathur, currently head of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, a government body.

However, in a hearing last month, his counsel informed the court that Pachauri was still TERI director general and he has not been officially relieved of the obligations by the organisation.