The West Bengal Women's Commission today wrote to President Pranab Mukherjee for withdrawal of the Padmashree awarded to Prof Sushanta Datta Gupta, Vice-Chancellor Visva Bharati University, as a case of alleged sexual harassment was pending against him.
"We are shocked to know that Prof Datta Gupta has been awarded the prestigious Padmashree award completely overlooking the history of his sexual harassment of a woman colleague during his tenure at the Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences," Commission Chairperson Sunanda Mukherjee told PTI here.
"In 2004, a professor RPT professor had lodged a complaint of sexual harassment against Prof Datta Gupta to the commission, whose intervention led to the setting up of a ministerial committee that had found him guilty," she said.
The commission has been communicating with the Ministry of Science and Technology on the matter ever since the complaint was lodged.
"We have also sent a proposal to National Council for Women but nothing happened so when his name was announced as Padmashree awardee, we decided to write to the President seeking his intervention," she said.
Mukherjee said that the President has been requested to withdraw the name of Professor Datta Gupta as a recipient of Padmashree and to remove him from the post of VC of Visva-Bharati.
She said that the award and Prof Datta Gupta's appointment as VC would only encourage offences against women.
Letters have also been sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is the chancellor of Visva Bharati as also West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Mamta Sharma.
Prof Datta Gupta who has been VC since 2011 was unavailable for comment.
