Advocate B.S. Ajeetha has resigned from the post of member, Internal Complaints Committee, Kalakshetra Foundation, Chennai, “disturbed” by the response of the administration to the recent sexual harassment complaints levelled by some students of the prestigious institute, that offers programmes in Indian classical arts, against a few instructors.
In her resignation letter addressed to the Director of the Foundation, the lawyer said, she had been serving as a member of the ICC, constituted under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act of 2013, for the last four years and conducting awareness programmes on the law.
“The present atmosphere in the institution and the large-scale discontentment off the women students and staff make me to rethink as to whether I should continue to be an external member of the ICC attached to the institute. I have my own reservations regarding the responses made by the administrators to the present controversy,” the letter read.
Stating that she does not want to be associated anymore with the institution, and particularly does not want to continue as a member of the ICC, Ms. Ajeetha urged the Foundation to accept her resignation forthwith, and hoped better counsel would prevail over the administration, and that things would be sorted out in a judicious manner that would be acceptable to the affected students.
When contacted and asked whether the foundation had reconstituted the ICC recently without notice to her, Ms. Ajeetha said: “I got to know about it after I sent out my resignation.”
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