‘Personal vindicta’: Delhi court junks plea against DU principal for casteist remarks

PTI, Oct 29, 2021, 3:03 PM IST

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New Delhi: A Delhi court has dismissed an application filed by a sacked professor seeking registration of FIR against the principal and professors of a Delhi University college under the SC-ST Act for alleged casteist remarks, noting that the case was filed to settle “personal vindicta”.

The sacked additional professor alleged that the principal, along with four professors of the college, hatched a conspiracy to terminate her service by intentionally insulting and abusing her due to her caste, forging documents and creating false records and evidence.

She sought registration of FIR under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against them as well as the erring SHO for not registering the FIR on her complaint and the DCP for not taking legal action against the SHO.

Junking her plea, Additional Sessions Judge Charu Aggarwal said that the entire material on record clearly showed that the allegations mentioned were nothing but an afterthought.

The judge, in an order dated October 26, also pulled up the complainant for not mentioning anything about the proceedings in the case which took place before the Delhi High Court.

“Since she has remained unsuccessful in all those proceedings, therefore, now in order to settle her personal vindicta, she has filed the present case making all those allegations already made by her before Delhi High Court,” ASJ Aggarwal said.

So far as the allegations under the SC/ST Act are concerned, on that also the complainant has not given any specific instance when she was insulted or humiliated due to her caste by the principal and professors, she added.

“Prima facie no offence Under IPC and under SC/ST Act is made out. Accordingly, the concerned Police has rightly not registered the FIR on the complaint of the complainant. This court also decline to take cognizance as no offence is made out from the contents of the complaint filed by the complainant,” the judge ordered.

In the action taken report (ATR) filed in the court on September 9, Delhi Police had submitted that no offence was made out under the Act.

The sacked professor had moved the court seeking direction from the court to the police to register an FIR against the principal and others under SC/ST Act and Indian Penal Code and punish them in accordance with the law.

She had claimed, “The behaviour of accused number 1 [principal] has been casteist, demeaning, discriminatory, threatening towards the complainant that the Accused No. 1 used to make casteist remarks so much so that on August 10, 2020, the complainant was refused her rejoining from the job.”

The complainant, in an application filed through advocates Mehmood Pracha, Alka Singh, Jatin Bhatt, and Sanawar Choudhary, said that she got selected by a “meticulous selection process on a post reserved for the scheduled caste community as she belongs to the Ravidasia caste.”

She claimed she was selected as an assistant professor on an ad-hoc basis for a period of four months from August to December 2019 which was later extended.

She claimed that on August 10, 2020, she was informed by the officials of the college that she can not join the service anymore, pursuant to which she met the principal to find out the reason who in turn humiliated, threatened, and passed caste-based remarks.