BENGALURU: While the police have begun investigations after four PhD students of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) institute filed sexual harassment complaint against a senior faculty, the institute has said that it has submitted a report of the internal probe conducted on the matter to the police. Fourth Paradigm Institute, a unit of CSIR, issued press release on Tuesday which said, “The four students who have filed the complaint belong to the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR) whose students pursue their academic career in CSIR campuses. These students made initial complaints about academic matters against a coordinator who is a scientist at CSIR-4PI whose responsibility is to interface with AcSIR with regard to academic affairs.
The coordinator is not their guide and is not a deciding authority on award of grades etc. “When the academic complaints were referred to AcSIR for resolution about a year ago, the four students instead lodged a sexual harassment case on CPGRAMS. CSIR-4PI followed due process and conducted preliminary investigation by an internal complaints committee (ICC), constituted in accordance with the Act of 2013.”
“The students refused to attend any of the ICC meetings when called. On preliminary investigation, ICC found no prima facie case, as such dismissed the case on May 2017. This was also communicated to AcSIR and it is learnt that AcSIR served a show cause notice on the students. Since the time of the initial complaint itself, CSIR-4PI took all steps to resolve all their academic matters,” the release said.