Dharamsala, July 23 (IANS) The Himachal Pradesh college where medical student Aman Kachru was allegedly ragged to death is in the midst of another controversy with the reinstatement of a senior teacher accused of sexual harassing a student.
Less than a week after the bail granted to four final-year students of the Rajendra Prasad Medical College at Tanda near here in the Kachru case led to public outrage, authorities have reinstated R.S. Yadav, head of the department of biochemistry.
Principal Secretary (Health) P.C. Dhiman confirmed the reinstatement Friday, saying: ‘Yadav has been reinstated but the government probe against him regarding the allegations of sexual harassment is still on.’
‘Under service rules, we can’t keep an employee under suspension too long,’ Dhiman told IANS.
Yadav had been placed under suspension by the government for the second time in April last year on the complaint of the woman student that he was influencing her to withdraw the sexual harassment charges levelled against him.
The student, who is pursuing her four-year B.Sc Medical Laboratory Technician course in the college, filed a complaint with college authorities in 2008 that Yadav made sexual advances towards her.
On the basis of the complaint, a first information report was registered against him Jan 17, 2008.
After his reinstatement, the complainant said: ‘College authorities do not seem to be serious about the inquiry against the teacher. I am really disheartened and it certainly gives a wrong message.’
A senior faculty member said: ‘Yadav’s reinstatement has come at a time when the complainant student is still studying in the college and it has an adverse affect on the psyche of the student and also the outcome of the pending inquiry.’
An official of the college said Yadav was suspended on the complaint of the student in February 2008. However, he was reinstated within six months.
He was suspended again in April 2009 on the complaint of the same victim.
