Prime Accused In TCS Forced Conversion Case To Approach Nashik Court For Pre-Arrest Bail Citing Pregnancy

In a development in the ongoing investigations in the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Nashik BPO sexual harassment and religious coercion case, one of the prime accused Nida Khan, who was initially described as an HR head and later as a tele seller, would soon be filing an anticipatory bail plea to ensure she is not put behind the bars, citing her 'pregnancy' as one of the grounds. 

Confirming the same, advocate Baba Sayyed, who represents the accused persons in this case, said that within a day or two, Nida would be filing her pre-arrest bail plea before the Nashik Sessions Court. 

"She is yet to be arrested in the case and thus, is planning to approach a sessions court here in Nashik seeking pre-arrest bail. Among several other grounds that she proposes to raise before the court seeking pre-arrest bail, she will be highlighting the ground that she is pregnant. Within a day or two, we will be filing the plea," Sayyed confirmed. 

Notably, the instant case, has shook the entire Maharashtra as at least 70 internal complaints of sexual harassment and forced religious conversions made by female employees of the BPO before Nida, the HR head, who chose to ignore the same. She is termed as a 'master mind' of the crime as she did not even activate the company's POSH mechanism against the six male colleagues, accused of sexually harassing female employees of the BPO for over four years. 

The accused - Mohammad Danish Sheikh (booked for luring a victim under the false promise of marriage and pressured others into religious practices), Shafi Bikhan Sheikh, Raza Rafiq Memon (team leader accused of intimidating staff and making obscene remarks about female colleagues), Tausif Attar, Shahrukh Qureshi, and Asif Aftab Ansari (Senior employees implicated in various FIRs for stalking, harassment, and forced religious conversion attempts.)

The police has also arrested Ashwin Chainani, an Operations Manager of the POSH Committee, for his alleged failure to address harassment complaints.

According to Sayyed, while all the arrested male employees have been sent to judicial custody, only accused Memon and Sheikh have been remanded to police custody till April 18. He added that the legal team is preparing to file the bail applications on behalf of all these arrested accused and the plea by Danish is already pending before a court in Nashik.

Notably, recently on April 15, the National Commission for Women (NCW) took suo motu cognisance of the various media reports concerning alleged incidents of sexual harassment of women at the BPO unit in Nashik.

The NCW in its release, stated, "The reports indicate that an initial inquiry, triggered by a complaint relating to religious practices, has brought to light disturbing allegations involving sexual harassment, rape, and attempts at forced religious conversion of female employees by certain individuals in supervisory roles."

The NCW therefore, has constituted a 'fact-finding' committee under Justice (retd) Sadhana Jadhav of the Bombay High Court which is requested to conduct an enquiry into the incident by visiting the BPO Unit, speak to victims, police etc and submit its report within a period of 10 days. The Committee also comprises of BK Sinha, former Director General of Police, Haryana, Advocate Monika Arora and NCW's Senior Co-ordinator Lilabati.

The Committee is likely to visit the BPO unit in Nashik today (April 17).