DU teacher guilty of sexual harassment

AN OFFICIAL OF THE COLLEGE CONFIRMED THAT THE TEACHER WAS FOUND GUILTY BY ICC

NEW DELHI: The internal complaints committee (ICC) of a Delhi University college has found a faculty member guilty of sexually harassing a student, who had complained about the incident in February. The committee submitted its report to the college’s governing body (GB) last week.

A student of Bharti College had written to vice-chancellor Yogesh Tyagi on February 6, urging him to take action against a faculty member for allegedly harassing her over a period of time.

She had accused the faculty member of sending her lewd messages and making obscene phone calls until she confronted him in April 2017 and also recorded the act of confronting him. She submitted that video clip to the vicechancellor and it purportedly showed her slapping the faculty member for harassing her.

A senior official of the college confirmed that the teacher was found guilty by the ICC.

“The ICC has recently concluded its inquiry. The faculty member has been found guilty of the charges levelled against him by the student. The report was submitted with the governing body during a meeting last week,” the official, who did not wished to be named, said.

While college principal Mukti Sanyal refused comment, the governing body chairperson Ajay Gaur said they had received a report and would comment only after conducting a meeting.

“The process is underway. We have received the ICC report and we are yet to take the final call. Once we arrive at a decision, it will be made public,” he said.

The complaint in Bharti college was followed by an another such complaint from Daulat Ram College. These complaints had triggered a spate of protest across the university earlier this year. Students took to streets demanding autonomous internal complaints committees in colleges and departments across the university. In both cases, none of the students had reported the incident to their college’s internal complaints committee. They said they were unaware of the existence of such a committee as there were no elected student representative in these panels.

According to the University Grants Commission norms, the ICC should have a presiding officer (woman), two faculty members, two non-teaching members, a representative from an NGO and three elected student representatives (preferably women).