The state government has set up a five-member committee to probe into sexual harassment allegations against suspended Thane jail superintendent Hiralal Jadhav.
Jadhav was booked by Thane Nagar police on August 28 following a complaint by a woman constable attached to the prisons department at Thane central jail.
The complainant claimed that Jadhav often pestered her to meet him near Kalwa naka after duty. On August 26, when she reached the place, Jadhav was waiting in his private car. When he saw her, he held her hand and pulled her into the car, but she managed to escape, she claimed. After Rajvardhan Sinha, IG prisons, conducted an inquiry and submitted report to the state government, Jadhav was suspended with immediate effect.
Jadhav had claimed that the sexual harassment charges against him were a conspiracy by ‘jealous’ colleagues from the prisons department.
According to the government order issued on Friday, the inquiry committee will be headed by IPS officer Aswathi Dorjee, who is presently additional police commissioner. Others on the panel are deputy commissioner of police (social security branch) Arvind Sawant, advocate Anupama Pawar, activist Farida Lambe, and deputy superintendent of Yerwada Jail Aruna Mugutwar.
The departmental inquiry will be carried out against Jadhav under various sections of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Preventation, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013, besides other relevant Acts. The committee will be empowered to examine the charges levelled against Jadhav and will have to submit its report within two months.