JOIN USThe Supreme Court on Monday slammed a top official of a Bengaluru-based software company for filing a “frivolous” plea to challenge a Karnataka High Court order that had quashed his complaint of caste abuse against superiors. The high court had noted that he never raised any allegations until three female employees made sexual harassment charges against him.
“This is an absolutely frivolous petition and abuse of the process of law,” a bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and U U Lalit observed, dismissing a petition filed by Ramesh Chelliah, who worked as director of engineering at Bengaluru-based Ensemble Engineering Adva IT Solutions Pvt Ltd.
He had challenged the March 15 judgement of the high court that had quashed the criminal proceedings initiated by a sessions court under the provisions of the the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015.
The high court had noted that the complaint filed by Chelliah before the sessions judge was “false, malafide and ulteriorly motivated”.
Sunil Menon, vice president, and Ashok Waddodagi, senior manager of the company had approached the high court, contending on July 12, last year, the women employees had complained of sexual harassment by Chelliah.
The matter was referred to an independent committee
However, on August 11, 2016, Chelliah sent legal notice to them alleging discrimination and unfair treatment on account of his caste. Afterwards, he filed a complaint under the SC & ST (POA) Act.
In their plea, they denied all allegations as “absurd and inherently improbable”. They submitted that Chelliah was appointed on Februrary, 2014 as director of engineering on a salary of Rs 46,80,000 per annum, which was enhanced to Rs.62,08,119 per annum in March.