Dubai: A company owner has been cleared of molesting a woman accountant and attempting to remove her hijab.
The Indian owner, R.C., had pleaded innocent and denied walking into his countrywoman’s office and groping her while they were alone in the company in October.
Citing lack of substantiated evidence, the Dubai Court of First Instance acquitted R.C. of molesting the accountant,
The woman, who worked as an accountant and administrator at R.C.’s company, had claimed that she resisted the man and foiled his attempt to molest her.
When he defended himself in court, the company owner accused the accountant of lying, maintaining that she had fabricated the molestation claims out of malice.
“I did not touch her. She lied in this complaint because I had asked her to cancel her visa and leave,” R.C. told the court.
The company owner contended that the incident happened after he hired the woman, who was supposed to report to work at 8.30am daily.
“She always reported late to work. She had also taken from me a payment in advance … when I decided to deduct the payment from her salary, we had a dispute. When I asked her to cancel her visa and leave work, she complained maliciously against me,” contended R.C.
The Indian woman alleged that the incident happened in her office at 3pm in October.
“He came to my office and put his hand on mine … I pushed it away. I prevented him from removing my hijab ... he grabbed my cheek and kissed me. I could not push him away. The suspect groped me during different times but every time I pushed him away and asked him to leave my office. I remained silent because I needed the job and the money and because I thought he might stop but he didn’t. He also used to offer me money to sleep with him … he often asked me to remove my hijab and wear sexy clothes. I refused,” she claimed to prosecutors.
Her friend alleged to prosecutors: “I heard the woman saying to someone with her in the room ‘leave my hand’ and ‘leave me alone’ and ‘why are you doing this?’ The claimant told me that her boss [the suspect] molested her.”
According to the judgement sheet, the court dismissed R.C.’s accusation due to lack of substantiated and strong evidence.
The ruling remains subject to appeal within 13 days.
