New Delhi: Four professors of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K) have been booked by the police for allegedly harassing a Dalit faculty member of the institute’s aerospace department.

The FIR against the four senior professors – Eshan Sharma, Sanjay Mittal, Rajiv Shekhar and C.S. Upadhyay – and an unidentified person has been filed under relevant sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and IPC Section 500 (defamation).

The complainant, Subrahmanyam Saderla, who is also an alumnus of the institute, alleged that the accused professors and others spread rumours that he benefited from reservations and is not competent enough to answer questions.

He had also written a strongly-worded e-mail to the IIT director and the head of aerospace engineering department, Professor A.K. Ghosh, drawing their attention towards the alleged harassment, said an IIT official.

According to the Indian Express, while three of the accused are still at IIT-K, Shekhar was shifted to IIT-Dhanbad a few months ago and is now the director of the institute.

“In addition to the caste-based discrimination I have been facing by the hands of these professors since the day I joined IIT Kanpur, they have now started making random allegations on my research work…They started digging up things against my wife. I am continuously being harassed and anonymous emails against me are doing the rounds in the institute,” Saderla told the newspaper.

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Maninder Agarwal, deputy director at IIT-K and former managing director, told Indian Express that the four professors had sent out emails stating that Saderla was not fit to teach at an IIT. “After a lot of mental harassment, Saderla complained to me and on January 12, a fact-finding committee was formed,” Agarwal said.

A three-member panel led by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes found the four professors guilty in April this year, the newspaper reported. The NCSC had then asked IIT-K to register a complaint against them under the SC/ST Act. The accused approached the Allahabad high court against the NCSC’s directive, and the bench stayed the commission’s decision, saying it had gone beyond its powers.

According to the Times of India, IIT-K then formed a committee headed by a retired judge to look into the matter. This committee to found the professors guilty, and on October 17 the university board decided to take action. Mittal, Upadhyay and Shekhar were demoted while Sharma was let off with a strict warning, Indian Express reported.

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Two weeks ago, Saderla also decided to take the matter to the police. “The FIR was registered Sunday night on the complaint of assistant professor Saderla. Earlier there was an inquiry into this matter at the board level and the professors were found guilty of caste-based harassment. With that, we have lodged an FIR and will start an investigation,” K.V. Mishra, SHO of Kalyanpur police station, told Indian Express.

Faculty protest

The faculty forum at IIT-K has alleged that the institute has mishandled the allegations. In an emergency meeting held on Monday, the forum passed a resolution to “divest” the institute’s deputy director and head of aerospace engineering department of their duties.

“We understand that the institute did not find any merit in the charges of harassment against four of our colleagues under the SC/ST Act. If anyone charges them under the SC/ST Act for carrying out their professional and official duties, it is the responsibility of the institute to defend them in any court or any other place. Any cost incurred by them in the past should be reimbursed by the institute, and any future legal cost incurred shall be borne by the institute,” Indian Express quoted the letter as saying.

“We ask the director to refer to the earlier resolution of a general body meeting which raised concern about the conduct of aerospace engineering department HoD A K Ghosh, and then officiating director (now deputy director) Manindra Agarwal for violation of official conduct rules. These officials should be divested of their official responsibilities with immediate effect. The director should also address the entire IIT-Kanpur community and apprise them of the exact charges against the four professors and the evidence recorded against them by various committees.”

(With PTI inputs)

Note: This article was updated on November 23 to include the faculty forum’s letter.