Harassment of IAS officer: former Kerala minister acquitted

It was alleged that Nadar invited Netto to his chamber at the Assembly Building on the pretext of discussing official matters. When she entered the chamber, Nadar tried to molest her.

Nadar had to quit from the Cabinet after the officer took up the matter with then chief minister E K Nayanar. Later, Netto filed a police case against the leader.

Netto, at present the Chief Electoral Officer in Kerala, said the future course of action, including the matter of filing an appeal against the verdict, would be decided after consulting her counsel. “The verdict has come out today. I have to see its details,” she told The Indian Express.

Earlier, the officer had to wage a legal battle in the lower court. She even moved the Supreme Court against the transfer of her case from Magistrate III, who had his judgment ready, to Magistrate II. The transfer of the case came in the wake of the promotion of the Magistrate III as a judge. Later, Netto moved an appeal in the Supreme Court, which stayed the transfer of the case.

Tuesday’s verdict would bring little comfort for Nadar, as another sexual harassment case filed by IFS officer Prakriti Srivastava, in which he was found guilty, is pending in the High Court.

As per the charges in the second case, Nadar, who had been holding the Forest portfolio in the Nayanar ministry, called Prakriti, then DFO at Nilambur in North Kerala, to his room in a government guest house in Kozhikode and tried to outrage her modesty. The incident took place on February 27, 1999.

He was found guilty by the Kozhikode Judicial First Class Magistrate and sentenced to imprisonment for a year. Though Nadar moved an appeal in the sessions court, the verdict was upheld. The case is now in the Kerala High Court after Nadar filed an appeal against the verdict.