E-Paper
Sexual abuse plaints against officials: PU forms panel
Panjab University (PU) syndicate, in its meeting on Sunday, decided to form a committee to devise a mechanism to act in case of sexual harassment complaints made against top functionaries of the varsity, including the vice-chancellor (V-C).
Panjab University (PU) syndicate, in its meeting on Sunday, decided to form a committee to devise a mechanism to act in case of sexual harassment complaints made against top functionaries of the varsity, including the vice-chancellor (V-C). The issue arose out of a woman professor’s complaint of sexual harassment against the V-C.
The panel will include Prof Ronki Ram, Prof Navdeep Goyal, Anu Chatrath, Ashok Goyal, Prof AK Bhandari, Iqbal Sandhu and Prof Karamjeet Singh. Besides looking into the woman professor’s complaint, the panel will mainly focus on devising a mechanism so that such complaints could be addressed in the future.
At present, there is no provision in the PU calendar for dealing with sexual abuse complaints against members of the varsity’s governing bodies — syndicate and senate.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) had earlier written to PU to get the complaint of the woman professor enquired from Panjab University Committee Against Sexual Harassment (PUCASH) and had submit the report to PU Chancellor and Vice-President of India Hamid Ansari. At present, the complaint is still pending with the UT police and PUCASH.
The woman professor had written three letters on September 14, 19 and 22 to the Chancellor, complaining continued sexual harassment at the work place as university authorities were making her complaints and statement public. The letters were part of syndicate agenda on Sunday.
