Kollam: The Kollam West Police has charged senior advocate and CPM leader E Shanavas Khan (74) with four counts of sexual harassment and outraging the modesty of a woman, following a complaint filed by a 24-year-old junior lawyer.
According to the FIR registered on June 22, Adv Khan invited the lawyer, who is two months pregnant, to his house and forcibly hugged and kissed her on June 14.
Khan, who is the Kollam district president of CPM's trade union CITU, has been booked under Sections 354 (using criminal force to outrage woman's modesty), 354 A (1) (i) (making explicit sexual overtures), 354 A (1) (ii) (requesting sexual favour), and 354 A (1) (iv) (making sexually coloured remarks) of the IPC.
Section 354 is a cognisable and non-bailable offence which attracts up to five years in prison.
Khan's phone was switched off and was not reachable. According to advocates close to him, he would approach the court for anticipatory bail.
Khan was the chairman of the Bar Council of Kerala from February 2019 to February 2020 and was the chairman of the powerful disciplinary committee of the Bar Council of Kerala till two months ago.
Sources close to the complainant said several high-profile advocates called her to strike a compromise with the senior advocate.
Khan also allegedly phoned the young lawyer to apologise a day after the reported incident. The phone conversation was videographed by her husband. The four-and-a-half-minute conversation went something like this:
'Hello moley (an endearing word), Vakeel aano?' (Are you the lawyer?)
Complainant: Yes
'Moley, I'm Shanavas Khan. Moley sorry if you misunderstood.'
Complainant: What misunderstanding?
'If there is no misunderstanding, leave it. I just said.
Complainant: Could you tell me what is the misunderstanding you are referring to?
'I am told by ***** (the complainant's boss who is also an advocate) that I misbehaved with you.
Complainant: I did not complain without you misbehaving with me. You hugging me was not misbehaving?
'Moley, please forgive and forget. I thought of you as my sister.'
The complainant can be heard saying: "Sir, there may not be any problem if you had done that with your sister. But you don't know me. You have only seen me. There are other juniors too. How will we know if you have not misbehaved with them, too?
Moley, I have not even done anything to your face? It was only encouragement. In the name of god, please forgive and forget.
When contacted, the complainant told Onmanorama that she and her colleague went to Shanavas Khan's home-cum-office adjacent to her office around 3.30 pm to enquire whether he would notarise documents for her friend. He said yes and they returned to her office.
Around 10 minutes later, she stepped out of her office to go home and Shanavas was at his gate. "He gestured to me to come over," she said.
According to the FIR, Shanavas called her intending to sexually assault her. He asked the young lawyer to check out his house. "Did you like the house?" he allegedly asked her. She said yes and was about to leave the house when the senior advocate allegedly asked the complainant: "Can't you give me a kiss before leaving?"
When she backed off, he allegedly hugged her and kissed her forehead. According to the FIR, he then asked her to come to his house alone next time.
She immediately reported the incident to her senior in office and her husband. There were efforts from senior advocates to broker a compromise.
She agreed not to press charges if Khan publicly apologised before the board members of the Kollam Bar Association. When he did not turn up on the scheduled day on June 20, the young lawyer reported the incident to police. "If I had dropped the complaint, what is the guarantee that he would not repeat it with other women?" she said.