Eight people, including a Congress district president, who is also the patron of an educational institution here, were booked here on charges of cheating and sexual harassment, police said on Saturday.
The action came on the complaint of a student named Anushka Singh, who alleged she was forced to enrol in BCA course instead of BA, which was her original choice, by officials at the Pt Sukhraj Raghunathi Institute of Educational and Technology in Ranjitpur Chilbila.
The student said she had applied for admission in BA at the institute in 2019 but Ramesh Gupta, a department head, and Chandrakant Tripathi, a manager at the institute, told her to instead take admission in BCA, Additional Superintendent of Police (East) Vidyasagar Mishra said.
She alleged that when she argued that she would not be eligible for the BCA as she did not study maths in Class 12, she was told that the norms had changed.
She took admission in BCA and deposited the fees, the ACP said, citing her complaint.
After the semester end in 2022, when she went to take admission in another institute in Prayagraj she was told that her degree was worthless, he said.
When she again went to the college in Chilbila to enquire about it, its principal Sheshmani Mishra and a few others allegedly abused her and chased her away, the officer said, quoting the complaint.
On the basis of the complaint, police registered a case against college patron Congress District President Lalji Tripathi, his son and manager Chandrakant Tripathi, and six others under Sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating), 354A (sexual harassment), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC at City Kotwali police station, the ASP said.
The matter is under investigation, the officer added.
Published 08 July 2023, 17:05 IST