Indian woman sues Oracle, her superior for sexual harassment

Venkatachari Jagannathan
02 August 2003

First it was Infosys Technologies' Phaneesh Murthy and now it is Mahesh Anand, a former employee of Oracle Corporation. The common denominator between these two Indians is the filing of sexual harassment case by their female juniors.

While Infosys went in for an out-of-court settlement of the sexual harassment suit filed by Reka Maximovitch a couple of months ago, the Oracle case has just been filed in the US by a 33-year-old Indian female senior applications engineer against Mahesh Anand, her superior, and Oracle.

The plaintiff is identified as Barbara Doe — as a measure to protect her privacy. In her suit, Doe alleges that Anand, her supervisor, repeatedly sexually assaulted and discriminated against her at the workplace.

The lawsuit also alleges that Oracle did not take immediate action against the male employee on the ground that he was technically good and that he should be retained even while risking the safety of its women employees.

Doe was employed by Oracle at its San Mateo office in 2000 and was working under Anand's supervision since November that year. It is alleged that when Doe's husband left town to visit his sick father, Anand sexually assaulted her twice in the office and at her home when she didn't attend office out of fear. The lawsuit also alleges that Anand told Doe that "pleasing the manager" was part of her job.

Soon after her husband returned home, Doe told him about the assault and made a complaint with Oracle about Anand. She also lodged a complaint for sexual assault with the Redwood City and Foster City police departments. The latter has referred the case to the district attorney's office of San Mateo County for prosecution where, however, it was rejected on the grounds of inadequate evidence.