Committee will arrive at conclusions: Shoma Chaudhury

Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhury of Tehelka news magazine said Friday that a committee formed to look into charges of sexual harassment against the magazine's editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal will come to its own conclusions.

She added that Tejpal would cooperate with the panel, which would examine the whole sequence of events.

Talking to reporters, Chaudhury said: "I am glad that a committee has been set up. It will come to its own conclusions."

She said she was not defending anybody, and denied that there was delay on her part in addressing the grievance of the young woman journalist who complained of sexual harassment by the magazine's founder and editor-in-chief.

"I was driven by the need to redress her sense of grievance," she said.

She informed reporters that Tejpal had offered an unconditional apology to the woman colleague he had assaulted, and that he had also stepped down.

Chaudhary had Wednesday issued a statement about Tehelka constituting a formal complaints committee to be presided over by Urvashi Butalia, eminent feminist and publisher, to investigate the sexual harassment charges.

Other members of the committee would soon be appointed, Chaudhury said.