Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad (SLSH), has served notices on two girl students asking them to vacate the hostel for complaining about alleged sexual harassment in the institution to the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD).
The duo, currently in their fourth-year BA.LLB, had also accused an assistant professor, Srinivas Methuku, of sexual harassment on a social media platform adding MeToo hashtag this month.
Anonymous posts
The students, Snigda Jayakrishnan and Y.K. Apoorva, said they have been bringing cases of sexual harassment to the attention of the administration and the Ministry for months. Ms. Jayakrishnan said when she and Ms. Apoorva wrote about “two anonymous posts that appeared on Instagram in the second week of October reporting of Mr. Methuku’s sexual harassment that the SLSH administration started taking vengeful action against them”. The students were asked to vacate their hostels by 5 p.m. on Friday.
In a letter sent to the Ministry on April 1, 2018, (a copy of which is with The Hindu ), the two students had referred to four cases of harassment including “a female student (who) was allegedly blackmailed by few of her male classmates who threatened to leak her personal photographs”.
The other cases include a girl student filing “a molestation case against her classmate”, “a group of girl students (who) complained against assistant professor Srinivas Methuku of constant ogling and causing discomfort” and “female students (who) complained against former campus administrator Patil for passing sexually-coloured remarks and shaming girls for not clothing themselves properly”.
SLSH clarification
After the Ministry asked the institution for an explanation, Registrar M.S. Shejul responded to the allegations in a letter dated May 3, 2018 stating that in the first instance, the girl student had “denied that she was subjected to any sexual harassment”. To the second allegation, the Registrar said the accused “male student was suspended for one year and the female student was given a transfer to another institute”.
To the third one, the Registrar explained that “the director of the institute was taking due cognizance of the matter…severely reprimanded the said faculty and ensured it is not repeated anywhere with anybody”. The institution, however, denied the fourth allegation stating that “during inquiry, it was revealed that the allegation was not true and the advice was absolutely misconstrued”.
Disciplinary action
Principal Director of Symbiosis, E. Vidya, however, said disciplinary action against the two students has little to do with the complaints of sexual harassment they raised.
“The students were asked to vacate the hostel as they have a history of indiscipline. They maligned the institute and the Director of SLSH, and were served notices earlier. Currently, a disciplinary committee is looking into the case,” Dr. Vidya clarified.
