Delhi police says 'no offence under SC/ST Act made out' against DU principal for casteist remarks

The police made the submissions in an ATR filed on a complaint of a sacked assistant professor who alleged that the principal hatched a conspiracy to terminate her from service

Delhi Police has informed a court here that no offence is made out under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and conspiracy against the principal of a Delhi University college for alleged casteist remarks against a sacked professor.

The police made the submissions in an action taken report (ATR) filed on a complaint of a sacked assistant professor who alleged that the principal, along with four professors, hatched a conspiracy to terminate her from service by promoting ill-will against her caste, forging documents, creating false records and evidence.

In the ATR filed before Additional Sessions Judge Charu Aggarwal on September 9, the police submitted that no offence is made out under Section 3 of SC/ST Act or for criminal conspiracy, criminal intimidation or fabricating false evidence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

To substantiate this, Inspector Rajeev Shah said that for the prosecution of offence under Section 3 of SC/ST Act, the conversation should be before public persons, but the sacked professor's complainant does not show the presence of anyone besides the principal and her at the place where the casteist remarks were made.

“The presence of other persons is not showing at the time of any conversation between principal and complainant hence it is very clear that as per the content of the complaint, offence under section 3 of SC/ST Act is not made out,” he stated in the report.

The police further said that even though the complaint is against the principal, four professors, and other known and unknown persons, not even a single word has been mentioned against any person except for the principal in her complaint.

Shah said that the complainant has already approached the National Commission for SC/ST, National Commission for Backward Classes, Parliamentary Committee for Welfare of SC/ST but no order or opinion has come in her favour.

The Additional Sessions Judge was also apprised that the complainant had approached the Delhi High Court but all the petitions were dismissed.

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.”

According to the complaint, 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.

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