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JNU professor cleared in sexual harassment case

NEW DELHI: The Complaint Screening Committee of the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) at Jawaharlal Nehru University here has given a clean chit to a professor accused of sexual harassment in the absence of any evidence or any witness in the case.

Last September, nine girl students had complained that the then chairperson of the Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies C. Upendra Rao was subjecting them to “harassment”.

He was later asked to hand over charge to another professor of the centre.

In their final report to the administration, members of the Screening Committee noted: “There is no evidence to back any of the charges and there are no witnesses in any of the cases…the screening committee feels that there is a lack of sufficient grounds to recommend a full-fledged inquiry.”

“The charges are not sustainable as there are no witnesses to substantiate the claims of the complainants… the complaints emanate more because of a communication gap as Dr. C.U. Rao is relatively new to the JNU culture and ethos and seems to be following a different behavioural pattern.”

In their first letter to the JNU Vice-Chancellor in August, some girls had alleged: “Every second girl student of the centre has been victimised by him in various ways on different occasions, from offering lifts, shaking hands…”

On these charges, the Committee opined: “…such actions as offering lift, shaking hands and also calling into office for signing the documents can’t be viewed as sexual harassment in normal circumstances…”

Feeling vindicated, Dr. Rao said he had expected this verdict since he was “innocent” and the entire episode was a “handiwork of vested interests”.

The Committee, however, felt that Dr. Rao should be counselled in gender-sensitive behaviour. “…since Dr. Rao’s behaviour and comportment appears to be at variance to the sensitivities of the campus, it is felt that he needs to be called and made sensitive to what constitutes appropriate gender-sensitive behaviour…”

When contacted, one of the girls who had complained said they were not satisfied with the report and would approach the appeals committee.

“We are shocked by the report. This is like mental torture for all of us. There was a strong lobby in his favour. There is no transparency and we will re-register our complaint,” claimed one of the girls.

Interestingly despite the report being in his favour, Dr. Rao has not been reinstated and the administration has asked the Dean of School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies Varyam Singh to take over as chairperson.

“This should not be seen as a punishment to Dr. Rao. These are two different matters. We realised that faculty members were not cooperating with him and he was not able to take people along with him. No faculty member has been considered for the chairpersonship,” said sources in the administration.

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