Just last month, the woman who spearheaded the French version of the Me Too movement, Sandra Muller, was found guilty of defamation and fined €15,000 in damages plus an additional €5,000 in legal fees to be paid to Eric Brion, the media executive she accused of sexual misconduct. Almost one year on, the Indian #Metoo movement seems to be suffering the same fate as men continue to use their influence and resources to get a clean chit

As all contemporary digital movements, it all started with an interview and then a tweet and before you knew it, India was having its moment of naming and shaming sexual predators in the workplace. While it was a collective moment of catharsis, the biggest take away from the #Metoo movement was hope for change. For a time people truly believed those days of corporate hypocrisy were behind them and change could begin from the ground up. But a year on, reality has hit home and as fresh allegations of sexual misconduct continue to arise every new day, let’s take a look at some of the people and organisations that have managed to retain their positions of influence despite the allegations against them.

MJ Akbar
Allegation Unarguably the most prolific person to be named in the movement, the former union minister has filed a defamation case against the senior journalist (Priya Ramani) who first accused him. In total at least 20 women have come forward alleging abuse by him.
Response Akbar who is notorious for having hired 97 lawyers to defend him resigned from his position with the BJP government but continues to write an occasional column in the press and deny all allegations. His defamation case against Ramani is ongoing at the moment.

Nana Patekar
Allegation Bollywood actor Tanushree Dutta stated that her co-star Nana Patekar sexually harassed her during the making of their film Horn Ok Pleasss.
Response Patekar denied the harassment claims and sent a legal notice to Dutta. Dutta reciprocated with a police complaint against the actor. Dutta’s complaint was closed by the Mumbai police stating that they couldn’t find enough evidence against Patekar.

Alok Nath
Allegation Writer director Vinta Nanda accused the popular TV actor of raping her 20 years ago. Actor Sandhya Mridul too stated that Nath made inappropriate advances towards her during a shoot
Response Nath vehemently denied Nana’s claims and filed a civil defamation suit against her. The Mumbai sessions court granted an anticipatory bail order to Nath stating that Nanda, “did not lodge the report immediately after the alleged incident for her own benefit”.

Varun Patra
Allegation Early this year, a woman accused Patra, co-founder of the indie media website Homegrown of sexually assaulting her and secretly making an audio recording of the encounter.
Response While the company lost half of its employees and a co-founder, Mandovi Menon, who resigned in the wake of the allegations. Patra who had briefly resigned from his post as head of marketing, acknowledged his mistake and issued an apology to the woman but was re-instated in the company a couple of months later. The organisation issued a statement saying that a committee founded specifically to handle the matter had found this to be a personal matter which had nothing to do with his role at the media company.

Subodh Gupta
Allegation An anonymous Instagram account accused the veteran artist of sexual misconduct which included repeated requests for an assistant to pose nude
Response After denying the allegations; Gupta took the case to court, filing a case of defamation against the anonymous Instagram handle. The Delhi High court recently ruled to take down all posts accusing the artist and ordered Facebook to reveal the identity of the person behind the first Instagram handle that made the allegations.

Vijay Nair
Allegation The former CEO of the entertainment company, Only Much Louder (OML) found himself embroiled in controversy last year after The Caravan published an article detailing the toxic work culture that he perpetuated. From asking a woman to get into the bathtub with him, to asking for massages and to even engaging in a sexual act during a professional phone call, without consent.
Response Nair and OML both denied the stories and then issued a tone deaf statement. Eventually Nair did step down as the CEO. He is now as a volunteer with the Aam Aadmi political party in New Delhi on an ad-hoc basis, as reported by The Caravan