The Delhi High Court on Monday refused to interfere with the decision of Delhi University to compulsorily retire a professor who was accused of sexually harassing an MPhil student of the Hindi department.
Justice C Hari Shankar said a teacher who, instead of maintaining high degree of moral conduct, indulges in sexually coloured text messages or telephonic conversations with his student has "no place in the institution and is an insult to the entire teaching community".
The court dismissed the petition of a professor of the Hindi Department in DU challenging the varsity's Executive Council decision to compulsorily retire him from the services with effect from July, 2011.
The court also held that it is not a defence for a teacher to urge that the student provoked the allegedly delinquent behaviour on his part.
"Suffice it to state that, on the admitted facts, the decision, of the respondents (DU), to compulsorily retire the petitioner (teacher) from service cannot be said to warrant any interference, by this court, in exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction, conferred by Article 226 of the Constitution," it said.
The court said the relationship of a student-teacher is so sacred that the slightest sexual tinge, therein, indelibly tarnishes the relationship and consigns it to profligacy.
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"Viewed thus, in the opinion of this court, there can never be any question of a teacher seeking to justify having committed acts, admittedly of a sexual colour and connotation, towards a student, seeking to urge, in his defence, that the acts were not 'unwelcome'," it said.
The court said it hardly matters whether the student was being taught by the particular teacher, against whom the allegation of sexual harassment was made, or not.
"The teacher, in an educational institution, is a teacher, qua every student in the institution. He is in loco parentis (in the place of a parent), not only towards the students whom he teaches, but to every student, studying in the institution...
"A teacher who, instead of maintaining this high degree of moral conduct, indulges in sexually coloured text messages, or telephonic conversations, with his student, has no place in the institution, and is an insult to the entire teaching community. For a teacher who regards himself as Dushyant to the student's Shakuntala, there can be no lesser punishment, in administrative civil law, than wholesale expulsion from the portals of the institution," the court said.
The judge was referring to one of the messages sent by the professor to the student in which he described himself to be Dushyant and the woman to be his Shakuntala.
Shakuntala and Dushyant were the star-crossed couple who were separated and met years later in poet Kalidasa's Sanskrit classic 'Abhigyan Shakuntalam'.
The court said it is not a defence for a teacher to urge that the student provoked the allegedly delinquent behaviour on his part.
"It may be pardonable for a student to harbour such an infatuation, towards the teacher; it is, however, entirely unpardonable, for the teacher, to succumb to the infatuation, and reciprocate.
"This court is completely convinced that any such reciprocation, on the part of the teacher, renders him unfit to continue to teach in the institution. There is, in the opinion of this court, no half-way house in such matters," the judge said.
The court said the manner in which the teacher conducted himself qua the woman student, in the matter of exchanges, verbal and textual, made a "mockery of the teacher-student relationship".
The infraction was undoubtedly serious, in the opinion of this court. Such conduct cannot be regarded as welcome and it is inherently unwelcome, to public and societal interest and to preservation of the sanctity of the educational edifice.
According to the complaint lodged by the woman with the authorities in 2008, the professor had started harassing her and used to make obscene phone calls in 2007. She had warned him against his behaviour but when the harassment continued, she lodged a formal complaint with the varsity.
Based on the prima facie evidence, the authorities conducted an enquiry against him and decided to compulsorily retire him from university services.