HC asks student to do community service for harassing girl

Showing leniency towards an engineering student accused of sexually harassing a classmate, the Delhi High Court has quashed criminal proceedings by asking him to render community service with an NGO for a year and pay a cost of Rs 40,000.

Showing leniency towards an engineering student accused of sexually harassing a classmate, the Delhi High Court has quashed criminal proceedings by asking him to render community service with an NGO for a year and pay a cost of Rs 40,000.

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Justice Hima Kohli passed the order after the victim submitted before the court that she has forgiven the accused for misbehaving with her.

"Having regard to the fact that petitioner is a young man and has a long life ahead of him and his future career shall be jeopardise if the criminal proceedings are continued against him," the court said.

The court directed the student Nitin Saxena, son of a government employee, to pay Rs 20,000 to the girl and the same amount to Nirmal Chaya, an NGO, within a week and directed him to do community service with Child Relief and You (CRY).

The court order came after both the complainant and the petitioner have settled the matter out of court on August 20 and prepared an agreement deed for quashing of the FIR.

Filing the FIR, the girl, a student of Engineering in Maharaja Agarsen college, had alleged her classmate repeatedly stalked her within the college campus and had sexually harassed her on October 17, 2008.

Meanwhile, the court has expressed its anguish over the college authorities' failure to prevent such incidents in the campus and said "regretfully, the college authorities have adopted an indifferent approach and did little to ameliorate the situation compelling the girl to lodge a formal complaint with the police."