BHUBANESWAR: Members of the internal complaints committee (ICC) of FM Autonomous College had in their report recommended replacing the accused assistant professor as the HoD of Teacher Education citing his behaviour towards students of the institute was ‘not right’.
Assistant professor of English department of the college Minati Sethi, who was a member of the ICC that was constituted on July 1, said the 20-year-old girl student of Integrated BEd had submitted a written complaint to the committee alleging sexual and mental harassment at the hands of the accused assistant professor.
While mental harassment could be proved in the ICC inquiry, sexual harassment was not. “Many students told us about the rude behaviour of the assistant professor during our inquiry,” she said.
Sethi said the victim had raised three allegations in her complaint - the accused seeking ‘favour’ from her on the assurance of helping her with studies and attendance, that she was constantly harassed by him by being made to stand outside class if she came late and being debarred from appearing for the 4th mid-semester exam.
“Seeking ‘favour’ can indicate sexual harassment. She had alleged that when she refused to entertain his demand for ‘favour’, he began harassing her,” Sethi said. However, the ICC could not find evidence of sexual harassment in the absence of any eye witness.
“We understand that no girl can produce proof of being sexually harassed. But to understand the situation, we also spoke to 60 students of the department who were randomly selected for the inquiry. The students told us that they had never faced any such situation with the assistant professor,” she said. The accused was also questioned and he denied asking for any ‘favour’.
However, the other two allegations were found to be true. Inquiry revealed that many students in the assistant professor’s class including the victim were made to stand outside the class for 45 minutes if they came late. Besides, the victim was debarred from writing the 4th mid-semester exam for not having adequate attendance.
“Since we came to know that his rude and strict behaviour was not being taken well by his students, we had suggested in our report to change him as the HoD of Teacher Education with immediate effect,” Sethi said.