CHANDIGARH: The

education department has exonerated a higher secondary school

teacher

in a 11-year-old case of harassing his girl students.

According to the complaint against him, the teacher was allegedly in the habit of asking girl students, ‘Kin khayalon me khoi hui ho’ (where are you lost).

The school department had received complaints from parents after which the teacher was suspended, but he got relief from the Punjab and Haryana high court and was recently exonerated by the department.

The teacher was suspended on February 9, 2007, and later charge sheeted by the department.

The department’s order said, “That his behaviour towards the girl students is not appropriate and while teaching, at times, he uses such words which are impossible to tolerate. For example, he uses such language as ‘Tumhara dhyan kidhar hai’ and ‘Kin khayalon me khoi hui ho’ and plays ringtones on the mobile in the class.”

The order further read, “Such attitude on the part of a lecturer is not appropriate and the same reflects upon the prestige and stature of a teacher.”

In his defence, the teacher, presently posted at Jhajjar, stated that he had not uttered the words “Tumhara dhyan kidhar hai” and “Kin khayalon mai khoi hui ho” and it might be misinterpretation of his teaching in class. He also denied carrying a mobile phone in the classroom.

The government found the reply unsatisfactory and appointed retired IAS H P Chaudhary as regular inquiry officer.

In his report submitted in September 2007, he concluded that the charges were not proven in clear terms.

“Yet, it was a fact that he (teacher) had physical relations with a girl in a previous school but was acquitted in the criminal case on legal grounds,” he said.

Acting on the report, the department had stopped one grade increment of the teacher in May 2013.

In an order released recently, Dheera Khandelwal, additional chief secretary (ACS), school education department Haryana exonerated the teacher in compliance of the orders passed by the Punjab and Haryana high court.

The ACS order clarified that the punishment against the teacher in May 2013 had been withdrawn after the high court observed that the punishing authority had passed a “speculative punishment” order against him.

With this the teacher would also be entitled to the salary for the period he remained suspended in 2007.