BDO India, top accounting firm, gets sexual harassment complaint from former employee

A former woman employee of BDO India has filed a complaint against a senior partner of the tax and accounting firm, accusing him of sexual harassment and caste bias at the workplace.

The woman told Moneycontrol that she sent a legal notice to Vineet Rustagi, who oversees shared services and outsourcing at BDO India, on November 15, claiming compensation for sexual harassment and job loss. The complainant sought compensation equivalent to four times her salary on the basis of cost to company and an unconditional apology.

The woman said she also sent an official complaint of sexual harassment to the managing partner of the firm after her resignation in the last week of October.

The complainant has filed a first information report in her hometown in Assam over allegations of not only sexual harassment but also criminal intimidation and has decided to follow up on that vigorously.

The woman made public the complaint against Rustagi in a social media post in late December. In a LinkedIn post, she accused Rustagi of not only sexually harassing her but also caste-based humiliation.

Moneycontrol is withholding the name of the woman employee.

Obscene pictures

In her post, she wrote that Rustagi “not only committed sexual harassment by sending his obscene images through WhatsApp but forced me to quit my job, as he constantly threatened to fire me if I filed any complaint to POSH … Vineet Rustagi regularly abused me on the basis of my lower caste and lastly created unnecessary scenarios for me to come back to the office in Noida during Covid protocols.”

Rustagi refrained from commenting on the allegations. BDO India said the complaint was being investigated.

“An independent statutory committee set up per specific provisions of the law, The POSH Act, 2013, is currently investigating the alleged complaint,” a spokesman told Moneycontrol.

POSH refers to The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013, commonly referred to as the POSH Act. The law has to be mandatorily followed by every organisation that has more than 10 employees. It requires the organisation to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) to receive and address complaints of any sort of sexual harassment from women in a time-bound, confidential manner.

The complainant had expressed lack of confidence in the inquiry being conducted by BDO India’s internal committee (IC), saying that during her time at the firm, the panel was headed by an office bearer who reported directly to Rustagi.

However, BDO India maintained that none of the IC members report to Rustagi.

“The IC is constituted as per the statutes and we confirm that none of the office-bearers report directly or indirectly to Mr Rustagi,” BDO India said in the statement to Moneycontrol.

The POSH Act requires a minimum of four people to be on the ICC, at least one of whom is an external or independent member. The committee must be headed by a senior woman employee and the composition of the committee must be made known to all employees.

Despite her reservations, the complainant said she shared documents and pictures concerning the incidents of sexual harassment with the panel. She said BDO India had not informed her about the composition of the committee probing her complaint and that she might not want to participate in the IC proceedings anymore.

What happens to IC enquiry now

Advocate Vrinda Grover, who has represented several women and child survivors of domestic and sexual violence, said the complainant, depending on her agency and the available options, was free to decide where she wanted to pursue her complaint. If the woman were to stay away from participating in the IC proceedings, Grover said the committee may perhaps not be able to come to a decisive finding and perhaps may only be able to give a prima facie observation based on the nature of the evidence.

“They (IC) may not be able to hold the accused man culpable if the entire inquiry process does not go through … the committee may not have any choice than to stop the inquiry in the complainant’s absence.”

Explaining the need for the complainant to participate in the IC’s proceedings, Grover said once one side of the case is presented, the principles of natural justice require that the complainant is available as the probing agency and the accused may have questions to pose. Moreover, no decision can be arrived at without completion of the process.

The complainant was employed with BDO India from March to October 2021. She returned to her hometown in Assam after resigning from the firm.

Mystery mediator

She told Moneycontrol that shortly after she sent the official complaint to the firm’s managing partner and a legal notice to Rustagi, she was approached by a woman who introduced herself as Tanya Wadhawan and claimed that she was appointed by the firm as a mediator to facilitate a settlement.

Wadhawan arranged for the complainant’s travel to Noida, where BDO India has its office, for the negotiation and settlement process and assured the complainant that Rustagi would tender an apology to her in writing, according to the complainant. Wadhawan advised against involving her lawyer or the police machinery, she said, adding that they communicated over the phone and through text messages and never met in person.

On her arrival in the national capital, the complainant recalled feeling that she was being constantly followed. Meanwhile, Wadhawan vanished and stopped all communication.

“There was a conspiracy to harm her (the complainant),” said advocate Milan Laskar, who is assisting the complainant through the legal process. “This is a case of criminal intimidation.”

The complainant hired Laskar after Wadhawan cut off all communications.

BDO India denied it had appointed any mediator in the case.

“We would like to clarify that BDO India has not appointed any mediator in this matter. Our IC (internal committee) is the only authorised body conducting an inquiry,” the firm told Moneycontrol.

BDO India said it is committed to providing a safe work environment for women.

“The firm takes matters relating to employee safety, protection and welfare with utmost seriousness and is doing everything in its power to ensure that we stand by what is right. To this end, the firm will cooperate in full with law enforcement and/or judicial authorities if and when the need arises. BDO India has a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of sexual harassment, and safety of women colleagues is the firm’s utmost priority,” it said.