Jadavpur University will hold a judicial inquiry into allegations of casteist slur levelled against a teacher of the International Relations department following recommendations of the university’s ST/SC/OBC cell.
Vice-chancellor Suranjan Das on Tuesday said: “I have got the resolution adopted by the university’s ST/SC/OBC cell. I will act as per the law. We will definitely conduct an inquiry as has been recommended by the cell. We will conduct a judicial inquiry. If the judge recommends suspension upon completion of a probe, the university will act accordingly.”
The recommendation will be placed before the university’s executive council, he added.
A JU official said the cell had suggested the university to set up an inquiry commission with members of the judiciary and representatives from SC, ST and differently-abled communities from outside the university.
The assistant professor has also been accused of not accepting a visually challenged student from the SC category in an MPhil programme under her guidance.
In early-December, Iman Kalyan Lahiri, head of the international relations department, had written to the VC that the assistant professor’s “response” to the allegation of the attack on the PhD scholar because of her caste “is a complete suppression of facts”.
“The response given by the teacher is necessarily factually wrong because she used certain words like ‘quota’ in the presence of the PRC (PhD research committee) members and again used certain words, not constitutionally accepted,” Lahiri’s letter said.
In that letter, the department head also wrote that the accused teacher has not “supervised a physically challenged student”.
“If any faculty member is not pursuing her academic responsibilities (supervising the student in question), the concerned faculty member must take medical leave as per rules of the university till the date the faculty member is medically fit to join the department,” Lahiri wrote.
The teacher did not do so, Lahiri alleged.
The student who was attacked on the basis of her caste identity said she was pursuing her PhD under the general category, just as she did her post-graduation from the same department.
“But that doesn’t matter because even if I was admitted under the reserved category, no one has the right to attack my social background. I belong to the Adivasi community of Assam. And after securing admission to a prestigious university like Jadavpur on my merit, it is highly disappointing and sad to hear such casteist and discriminatory comments in an academic space,” she said in a recent Facebook post.