The Kerala State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on Friday lambasted the State police for “wilfully turning a blind eye” to recurrent complaints that the Kerala Law Academy Law College Principal Lakshmi Nair had flagrantly disregarded the basic human rights of her students.
Acting chairperson P. Mohandas said the police had “wilfully turned a blind eye” to the aggrieved law students who sought justice at the Peroorkada station. (The agitating students had complained that policemen routinely enrolled themselves as management quota students at the private college and the current Station House Officer (SHO), Peroorkada, was himself a day scholar.)
The SHRC ordered that the allegations against Ms. Nair be investigated by a Deputy Superintendent of Police. It set a deadline of March 2 for the police to file their report.
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Mr. Mohandas directed the Chief Secretary, Kerala University Vice Chancellor, Ms. Nair and academy director Narayanan Nair to file sworn statements, separately, regarding the allegations.
The commission noted that the accusations that Ms. Nair segregated students on caste lines and subjected them to verbal abuse were grave ones that warranted a probe.
Six law students had moved the commission against the academy management. They deposed that Ms. Nair “played moral police” on the campus. She “approved and disapproved of relationships among students on caste basis.”
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She “publicly challenged” the “morality” of students and used surveillance cameras to “enforce the separation of sexes.”
Ms. Nair allegedly inveighed against parents of students who she suspected of impropriety. Students were forced to serve at a restaurant run by the Principal at the peril of scoring low marks in internal assessment.
The students were arbitrarily evicted from the college hostel if they fell sick, could not afford the fee charged to underwrite college functions or to make room for participants in national moot court competitions. The college was run by proxy by a girl student close to Ms. Nair.
The college authorities have since rejected allegations as false and a sly attempt to slur the decade-old institution’s reputation.