Former Taj Hotels executive assistant names then CEO and MD Rakesh Sarna in #MeToo story

A former executive assistant with Taj Hotels has come public with her #MeToo story against Rakesh Sarna, who had been the CEO and MD of Taj Hotels during her tenure there. The Indian Express reports that Anjali Pandit’s resignation letter alleging sexual harassment by Sarna had “anonymously appeared in the media during the Tata-Mistry tussle in 2016”. The Indian Express has “accessed official documents, emails and other communications” related to Pandit’s complaints.

Sarna resigned in 2017 after Cyrus Mistry was dismissed as chairman of Tata Sons, and there had been wide reporting on whether Mistry’s handling of a sexual harassment case had been a catalyst.

Pandit has now decided to speak on the record. Writing in The Indian Express, she says, “The sexual advances started with comments about the worth of my physical appearance during our salary discussions. Over the seven months he remarked on my looks, his attraction to me and his desire to have an affair. His advances were always verbal…”

Pandit said she found it difficult to seek a resolution internally, as Sarna was on the Internal Complaint Committee (which also had four people within two reporting lines of him) and also held the post of chief ethics counsellor. When she confided in board members, a senior HR official and Tata Group Executive Council members, she was urged to quit. Finally, she did.

After she quit, Pandit says Tata Sons’ law firm, AZB Partners, “tried to persuade her to sign a letter stating that her ‘decision to quit the Tata Group was based purely on personal reasons'”. She refused.