CHENNAI: Madras High Court has upheld the dismissal of two law students for sending obscene messages and making phone calls to a woman professor of their college.
“If the persons like petitioners are allowed to become lawyers, a situation may arise, where woman members of the Bar cannot attend the courts and the entire system will be ruined. Wonders may also happen in this country and we cannot predict, who will be elevated to the level of judge and if such kind of persons are elevated, people will definitely lose their faith in the justice delivery system,” a division bench of Justices R Sudhakar and VM Velumani has observed.
The bench was dismissing a writ appeal from two students of the Government Law College in Trichy, challenging the orders of a single judge upholding their dismissal. According to the duo, they along with other two students were dismissed from college without conducting any enquiry and without affording any opportunity to them. Contending that the dismissal order was arbitrary and passed in violation of the principles of natural justice, they sought to quash the same and to re-admit them in the college.
The college submitted that the students were given ample opportunities in the disciplinary proceedings and principles of natural justice were followed and the final orders of expulsion were passed not just for having friendship with another student who was involved in this act, but due to the proven serious misconducts.
Upholding the single judge’s orders, the bench said the admitted facts clearly reveal that the appellants had colluded together and committed serious misconduct, which is also a serious criminal offence. The court also rejected the contention that the punishment imposed own the students was disproportionate.