The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) administration has reconstituted the inquiry committee looking into Professor Nivedita Menon’s alleged role in an incident that occurred on December 26, 2016, in which students had stormed an Academic Council meeting, and her participation in a demonstration at the university’s administration block two days later.
Sexual harassment case
The move came after Prof. Menon moved the Delhi High Court citing the fact that the committee was headed by Delhi University (DU) Professor Bidyut Chakrabarty, against whom she had once testified in a sexual harassment case.
The JNU said in a notification, “Respecting natural justice and to have a fair examination of the case, the competent authority has constituted a committee consisting three DU Professors that include Ashok Prasad from the Department of Chemistry, J.P. Dubey from the Department of Adult Education and Kumund Sharma from the Department of Hindi.”
Prof. Menon, who is currently the chairperson of the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory at JNU’s School of International Studies, had during her stint as a Professor at DU testified against Prof. Chakrabarty in connection with a sexual harassment complaint by an employee of Delhi University’s Gandhi Bhawan. The university’s apex complaints committee had found Prof. Chakrabarty guilty in 2007.
“I have serious apprehension of bias and prejudice towards myself by the present committee headed by Professor Chakrabarty. I had deposed before an apex committee, offering evidence that went into finding him culpable. I am apprehensive that a committee chaired by him will not be impartial,” Prof. Menon had said in her letter to JNU Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar.
Several academics had come out in support of Prof. Menon against the inquiry committee headed by Prof. Chakrabarty. They had said in a statement, “The JNU administration has exposed its own mala fide intentions by ignoring Prof. Menon’s repeated pleas to reconstitute the inquiry committee, given her legitimate apprehension of bias. We are deeply shocked that the JNU administration ignored the fact that nomination of Prof. Chakrabarty as the chair of this inquiry against Prof. Menon is a violation of the principles of natural justice and the right to a fair procedure.”
They had called the move by the JNU administration “unethical and a persistent harassment of an eminent scholar with an international reputation.”