THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city police registered a case against Kerala Law Academy principal Lakshmi Nair for allegedly harassing a student belonging to scheduled caste by addressing him by caste. The Peroorkada police registered an FIR and the probe has been entrusted to assistant commissioner of police, Cantonment, K E Baiju.
The police booked Lakshmi Nair based on the complaint lodged by a student named Vivek, a fourth semester LLB student of the college. According to police, she has been booked under 3(s) of The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act which is a non-bailable offence.
The incident took place January 26, 2016. According to the police, Lakshmi Nair allegedly abused the complainant by addressing him with his caste in public. The FIR was registered on Saturday.
It may be recalled that the students of the college have been protesting for over two weeks for Lakshmi Nair’s alleged misbehaviour towards the students as well as irregularities in the institution.
Some other students too had filed similar complaints against her last year but the police did not register a case. Baiju told Express he primarily wanted to inquire into the veracity of the complaint as the incident took place a year ago. “Since the incident is said to have taken place a year ago, we need to check whether they had approached the police then to file a complaint against her.
If they had filed a complaint, then we will take further action, including arrest, based on the statements of the complainant and witnesses. We will take statements from the students soon,” he said. The State Human Rights Commission too had registered a suo motu case against Lekshmi based on students’ complaints of a similar nature. The case was that she had abused some Dalit students by calling them caste names.