Assistant Professor booked for sexual harassment

06/03/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,TIRUNELVELI

Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, in a bid to fulfil the direction of Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, has filed a complaint against an Assistant Professor in the Department of History five years after students levelled sexual harassment charges against him.

Based on the complaint preferred by Registrar S. Santhosh Baboo, Pettai police have registered a case against Vinod Vincent Rajesh. When a good number of girl students charged that Vinod Vincent Rajesh was sexually harassing them in 2015, the administration did not take any punitive action against him, forcing the students to launch a series of protests on the university premises.

As the protests continued despite intimidation by a few people in the administration, the MSU was forced to constitute an internal inquiry committee to probe the sexual harassment charges.

After the committee, comprising R. Kala of the Department of Mathematics, P. Madhava Somasundaram of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a few others, inquired the affected students and the witnesses, it recorded in its report that Vinod Vincent Rajesh had used “unprofessional statements” in the classroom.

Since the committee’s findings confirmed the charges levelled by the students against the Assistant Professor, the MSU administration placed him under suspension for a few months and then reinstated him. As he was allowed to work in Nagalapuram Mano College, the affected students objected the move.

Adding fuel to the fire, the MSU Internal Committee, which should have forwarded a complaint against Vinod Vincent Rajesh to the jurisdictional police after a prima facie case existed, did not fulfil the legal obligation, forcing the affected girl students to approach the court that directed the MSU to file a complaint with the police against the accused.

Dr. Santhosh Baboo filed the formal complaint on Wednesday and the police registered the case late in the night.