An Indian woman employee has sued the software giant Oracle Corp, alleging that she was repeatedly sexually assaulted, harassed and discriminated against by her former male supervisor and the company did nothing to help or protect her.

The lawsuit alleges that the Oracle management was deliberately oblivious to the discriminatory attitudes and abusive behavior that were displayed to the woman because the supervisor was technically proficient and Oracle did not want to lose technically proficient male employees, even when it meant that Oracle's women employees were in jeopardy.

Filed in California superior court in Alameda County on July 18, the lawsuit does not disclose the plaintiff's real identity to protect her privacy. Instead, she is identified as "Barbara Doe".

It names Oracle and Mahesh Anand as respondents. Anand has since left Oracle.

The plaintiff, a 33-year-old senior applications engineer, has been employed by Oracle at the company's San Mateo office in Bay Area, since 2000, and working under Anand's supervision since November 2000.

Denying the charges, Jennifer Glass, vice president of public relations at Oracle, told the India-West paper that "Oracle takes any allegation of employee misconduct very seriously, and Oracle believes it has acted appropriately in this matter. The facts do not support the allegations made in the case but it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."