NEW DELHI: Seventeen years after the much talked about incident of sexual harassment involving Indian Hockey Federation president and former Director-General of Punjab Police K. P. S. Gill and a senior IAS officer Rupan Deol Bajaj, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld his conviction by the Punjab and Haryana High Court judgment ordering him to pay Rs. 2 lakhs to Mrs. Bajaj and Rs. 50,000 as costs.

Mr. Gill, who was then DGP, Punjab, had misbehaved with Mrs. Bajaj at a party in the house of the then Financial Commissioner and Secretary to the Government of Punjab.

Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P.P. Naoelekar, who delivered the judgment, ordered Mr. Gill to give the compensation amount to a women's organisation as Mrs. Bajaj had said that she did not want to take the money.

Mrs. Bajaj filed a First Information Report (FIR) on July 29, 1988, and her husband filed a complaint before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) of Chandigarh in November 1988. Mr. Gill then filed a criminal revision petition in the High Court in 1989, which quashed both the FIR and the complaint before the CJM. Mrs. Bajaj and her husband, in a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court, challenged the High Court's decision in 1995.

The Supreme Court set aside the High Court order and sent the complaint case back to the trial court with directions to take cognisance of the offences under Sections 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman) and Section 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

In August 1996, the CJM sentenced Mr. Gill to three months' imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 500. Mr. Gill appealed before the Sessions Judge, Chandigarh.

The Sessions Judge upheld the conviction and ordered him to pay Rs. 2 lakhs as compensation to Mrs. Bajaj and Rs. 50,000 as costs of which Rs. 25,000 had to be paid to Mrs. Bajaj. Mr. Gill was put on a three-year probation period.

He then appealed before the High Court, which, in 1998, upheld the Sessions Court order but reduced the probation period to one year.

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