Disclaimer: This has been reported after the availability of the order of the Court and not on media reports so as to give an accurate report to our readers.
Madhya Pradesh High Court: In a petition filed by a professor against his dismissal by the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak (‘IGNTU’) for allegedly having an illicit relationship with a student, the Single Judge Bench of Vivek Jain, J., partly allowed the petition, holding that the relationship between the parties pre-dated her admission in the IGNTU and only one of the six charges could amount to misconduct.
Background
A female student filed a complaint with the IGNTU Chairman of the Internal Complaint Committee (‘ICC’) under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (‘POSH Act’), claiming that the petitioner professor, Head of Department of History, had sexually exploited her. She claimed that the professor had raped her in 2019 and had been sexually exploiting her ever since, and that she was pregnant.
Based on the complaint, the ICC investigated the matter and submitted a report finding it substantiated. Accordingly, a charge sheet was issued to the professor, and an Inquiry Officer was appointed. Thereafter, the inquiry officer held that the charges against him were proved.
Aggrieved, he filed the present petition.
Analysis
At the outset, the Court noted that the case against the professor began when a complaint was filed by a 30-year-old married lady claiming that she had known him since 2013 and he raped her in 2019. She contended that the professor used to sexually exploit her till 2021 under a false pretext of marriage, and consequently, she became pregnant. Due to her relationship with him, even her husband had divorced her, though no divorce decree was placed on record. Allegedly, her room rent was also being borne by the professor, and now she did not have money for getting her pregnancy tested, and the professor had refused to take responsibility for the unborn child.
From a perusal of this complaint, the Court stated that it was clear that the complainant and the professor were allegedly in some relationship since 2013, and in a sexual relationship since 2019, and then she became a student of the IGNTU in 2021 in the Ph.D. program. The Court noted that the sexual exploitation, as per the complaint, was going on for many years prior to the complainant becoming a student of the IGNTU, and the complaint did make a single allegation that the professor misused his position to sexually exploit her.
Therefore, the Court stated that the proposition that the professor either gave him a window of opportunity to sexually exploit her, or that he harassed a student by misusing the said position and then sexually exploited the complainant, did not appear sustainable by any stretch of imagination. The Court held that the complaint did not amount to a case of workplace harassment.
“If this application of the complainant is taken to be true at its face value, then at the most it can be a case of the professor getting a married lady, with whom he is having some extramarital relationship, admitted in the IGNTU in which he is already teaching.”
The Court further noted that though the complainant mentioned that she was pregnant, no child was born during the course of the proceedings, and she had not placed any divorce decree on record. During the course of proceedings under the POSH Act, the complainant, when confronted with her pregnancy, stated that the child had been aborted. The Court remarked that this raised suspicion about the contents of the complaint.
Regarding the composition of the ICC, the Court noted that it had 7 members out of the requisite 9 members. Out of these 7 members, one female faculty member was on maternity leave, so neither she attended any proceedings of the ICC nor signed the final report. Another member, the Assistant Registrar, was kept out of the ICC proceedings because the complainant had complained against his independence. Therefore, the ICC had practically only 5 members.
The Court opined that the said ICC was an utterly illegal committee constituted contrary to the University Grants Commission (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment of Women, Employees and Students in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2015 (‘the Regulations’). The Court stated that if two members of the 7 could not be part of the ICC, then the IGNTU should have replaced them.
“Without any replacement of these two members, the ICC continued in an utterly illegal manner.”
Furthermore, the Court noted that the ICC Report was signed on all the pages by only two members; signatures of the NGO/Social worker representative were photocopied on the last page, another member’s signatures were photocopied, and one member had not signed the report at all. Additionally, the Court remarked that all the pages seemed to have been signed in advance by the two members before the report was printed because even on the last page, the signatures were at the bottom, though the report ended at the top of the page. They had signed at the top of the page, and their signatures were also available at the bottom. This indicated that at the bottom of several blank sheets, the signatures of these two persons were taken in advance.
Therefore, the Court held that the ICC Report was nothing but a total farce and a bogus document which could not be relied upon in any manner.
The Court also noted that some ICC proceedings were conducted in the University premises while some were conducted in the complainant’s residence, without any just and reasonable cause. The Court remarked that if the complainant was a student of the IGNTU and the professor had already been suspended during the pendency of the ICC proceedings, then there was no reason for the proceedings not to be conducted in the IGNTU premises, but rather at the complainant’s house, which was more than 100 km away from the IGNTU campus.
Therefore, the Court opined that the ICC proceedings could not be relied upon, neither by the inquiry officer nor the disciplinary authority, to uphold the guilt of the professor.
Proceeding to the charge sheet, the Court discussed every charge framed against the professor:
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Sexual exploitation of a student: The Court noted that the inquiry officer had found this charge proved based on the professor’s statements that the two had cordial family relations and he used to give financial support to the complainant’s family. However, when he demanded the money back, an FIR was lodged against him under Section 376 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’).
Noting the aforesaid, the Court stated that the IGNTU seemed to be totally ignorant of the fact that it had no business to inquire into the relationship between the parties once the complainant stated that the relationship had been going on since 2013 and she became a student in 2021. “What the professor, a married person, and the complainant, a 30-year-old married lady, did in their private life, was not the lookout of the IGNTU in any manner whatsoever. This was much before the admission of the complainant in the University.” However, this aspect was not looked into in the charge sheet, the inquiry report, or the order of the disciplinary authority.
Therefore, the Court held that this charge was not made out.
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The professor was unreachable at the official address and declared an absconder: The Court noted that once the FIR was filed, the professor was praying for bail, and as indicated from the record, his bail application was rejected by this High Court and was ultimately allowed by the Supreme Court. Hence, the Court held that if he avoided arrest in the intervening time, then it was not something that could be treated as misconduct by the IGNTU. Additionally, since he had been suspended, he was no longer expected to attend duties.
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The professor approached the High Court for interim remedies without prior permission from IGNTU: The Court stated that this was the professor’s legal right, and he did not need to obtain prior permission from the IGNTU to seek anticipatory bail. Therefore, this charge was not made out; in fact, it was an illegal charge that contravenes the legal right of the accused in a criminal case to seek legal remedies.
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The professor, while in office, was involved in blackmailing and extortion along with his family members: The Court stated that this charge was also based on the complaint, which was not related to the time period when she became a student of IGNTU. Thus, the Court held this charge as unsustainable.
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The professor criticized the government in some social media posts, which was unbecoming of a government servant: The Court noted that the professor made some social media posts when he realised that he was being oppressed by IGNTU, but that did not amount to any misconduct. Furthermore, the Court noted that there was no evidence of the social media posts in the inquiry officer’s report or the disciplinary inquiry record. The Court also stated that in the original inquiry report sent by IGNTU, neither the documents exhibited in the inquiry were attached, nor was the evidence of any of the witnesses attached. Even the charge sheet did not contain a copy of the supporting documents to support charges 3, 4, and 6 on the grounds that they would infringe on the complainant’s privacy. Thus, this charge was also held to be unsubstantiated.
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The professor leaked a question paper to the complainant: In this regard, the Court noted that the Professor contended that he had shared important questions, which was a common practice during examinations to assist students, and it was not paper leakage. The Court opined that this charge could amount to misconduct; thus, IGNTU shall deal with it in detail by considering whether the leaked question papers were framed by the Professor, whether the paper setter had shared the question papers with him, and how he accessed the question papers if he did not set them. The Court remarked that the inquiry report was silent on these aspects, as well as whether there was an academic practice to share important questions before the examination.
Therefore, the Court held that only this charge would be made out against the Professor, but there was insufficient material against him at present.
Thus, the Court held that the impugned order of punishment deserved to be set aside.
Accordingly, the Court partially allowed the petition, thereby remanding the matter to the disciplinary authority only in respect of the question paper leakage charge. The Court further directed that the Professor shall be reinstated, but his reinstatement would remain under suspension till the final charge is decided in his favour. Regarding the back wages, the Court held that it would be dealt with by the disciplinary authorities.
[Rakesh Singh (Professor) v. Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Writ Petition No. 10864 of 2023, decided on 15-10-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the petitioner: Dinesh Upadhyay
For the respondent: Senior Advocate Ajay Pawar and Advocate Rahul Kumar Pathak
Buy Penal Code, 1860 HERE
