Pharma firm CMD in legal trouble after flight attendant accuses him of rape, harassment
Ahmedabad: A Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of a local pharmaceutical company is in soup as a Bulgarian flight attendant has recently filed a complaint with the Gujarat High Court alleging that the state police have failed to register her FIR against the CMD who allegedly raped and harassed her.
According to a recent media report in Times Of India, the 27-year-old complainant, who was employed as a flight attendant by the pharma group for its CMD, has also petitioned the court for directives to secure digital evidence, which she believes will substantiate her claim of being pressured by the police into a compromise.
In her plea, the woman stated that she was recruited in November 2022. Then she relocated to India and began living at the company's facility on the outskirts of the city. She was later tipped to work as his personal assistant, and she assumed her role in February 2023. She alleged that she then became a victim of sexual assault by the CMD and subsequently sought help from law enforcement.
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Upon inaction from the police, she took her grievance to a local magisterial court, which dismissed her plea, citing police reports about the alleged compromise. However, her advocate, Rajesh Kumar Mishra, has contested this, asserting to TOI, "We have also urged the HC to direct the police to furnish CCTV footage of Vastrapur police station where my client was forced to sign the affidavit. We want to establish that the police have been shielding the businessman."
The magisterial court had observed that the flight attendant had earlier filed a complaint at a women's police station and later submitted an affidavit on April 20, suggesting that the dispute had been settled. Moreover, according to JB Agrawal, the inspector of Sola High Court police station, despite multiple complaints lodged in May, the woman did not appear to provide her statement, leading to the closure of her complaint.
With the complaint now brought before the High Court, the case opens a critical examination of both the accusations against the pharma company's CMD and the conduct of the police in handling the complaint.
The High Court is set to hear her case on December 4.
