New Delhi: Two anonymous posts, purportedly by two Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) students, have now escalated into the Gujarat High Court calling for a “high-level inquiry” into the affairs of the college and its faculty.
The posts, published on an Instagram page, Seven Angry Women, 19 September 2023, referred to the students as “vocal victim #54” and “vocal victim #55”.
“I am in 2nd year GNLU, I was raped by my own batchmate,” one post starts.
“Hi, am from GNLU (he/they) over the past few months here I have been subjected to a lot of hate speech and homophobia among the university campus (sic),” reads the first paragraph of another post.
A student, on the condition of anonymity, told ThePrint that within two hours of the posts, the entire college knew about it. Nearly 200-300 students in the girls’ hostel got together to discuss the post late on 19 September night.
They even wore pink to classes to show solidarity with the victims. But, the institute set up a fact-finding committee to look into the incident much later, a day after the Gujarat High Court 25 September 2023 took suo motu cognizance of an Ahmedabad Mirror report about the posts.
The high court has, over the past few months, rebuked the college authorities for failing to take action. While taking cognizance of the posts, the high court noted the news report “does not suggest any action taken by the administration for want of formal complaint, which in our opinion would not be a correct approach”.
When the fact-finding committee constituted by the college finally submitted its report in a sealed cover to the high court late last month, Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha P. Mayee called the revelations “scary”.
“And the involvement of the GNLU administration, suppressing the whole incident…. and this is not two incidents… incidents of molestation, rape, discrimination, homophobia, favouritism, suppression of voices, lack of existence of internal complaint committee (ICC), lack of information to the students about ICC,” the bench was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
“If students of law, their voices are suppressed, who will speak in the country?… We are all responsible for this situation…This requires high-level inquiry into the affairs of GNLU and its faculty,” it added.
ThePrint has reached out to GNLU Registrar Jagadeesh Chandra T.G. by email. The article will be updated once a response is received from him.
‘Anxious effort to dilute matter’
One of the Instagram posts on 19 September spoke of a student’s experience of queerphobia, and mentioned “hatred” that the student had been subjected to.
“All this happened in a tier 1 law school, there is no grievance redress mechanism where I can take this up, there are near to no resources I can avail, & as always I cried a bit about my situation and how helpless & suffocated I feel being here, but as always didn’t really had any escape, so cried and went back to sleep,” it said.
The other post alleged that the student was assaulted on campus by a batchmate, who also took objectionable videos of her and threatened her.
A day after the high court took cognizance of the article mentioning the posts, GNLU sprung into action. On 26 September, it set up a fact-finding committee headed by retired IPS and former Gujarat DGP Keshav Kumar. On 27 September, an email was sent out to all the students, informing them about the constitution of this committee.
According to this email, seen by ThePrint, the committee also comprised Prof Anjani Singh Tomar, Prof. Fakkiresh Sakkarnaikar, and Assistant Prof. Nidhi Buch — all three GNLU faculty members. The email from the Registrar urged all students to come forward if they have any information related to the anonymous Instagram posts.
“The Fact-Finding Committee is dedicated to ensuring a safe and confidential platform for students to share their insights or experiences,” it added.
On 30 September, another email by the Registrar, seen by ThePrint, said that any female student may make a statement related to the news article to Prof. Tomar by meeting her in person, on or before 5 October 2023. It promised the students that “the statements will be recorded by maintaining total confidentiality”.
When the case came up in October, the high court lashed out at the Registrar, saying that an affidavit filed by him on 9 September 2023 “seems to be an overt anxious effort to dilute the whole matter by making inquiries in a summary way”.
The order noted that the affidavit said there does not appear to be any substance in the anonymous post quoted in the Ahmedabad Mirror news article. The order said that the court is taking “strong exception” to the Registrar’s stand in the affidavit.
The Registrar admitted in his affidavit that he had received messages on WhatsApp on 19 September from one of the assistant professors, as well as from the warden of the girls hostel, about the Instagram post, the court order said.
Also Read: How an Instagram post led to 20-year jail term for tutor who sexually exploited minor student
‘Effort to cover up’
The court added that the Registrar’s affidavit also had two reports attached to it. One such report was submitted by the warden claiming that she interviewed more than 80 students in the girls hostel, but none of them had any information about the alleged incident.
Another report was submitted by Prof. Tomar, who told the Registrar “in one line that no student came to meet her or deposed in relation to the email circulated by the Registrar”.
In October, the high court order also noted that Prof. Tomar was made a part of the panel, despite the fact that she submitted a report on 7 October 2023 “dismissing the whole incident”.
The court was clear. It said that “we strongly disapprove” of the manner in which the institute is dealing with the allegations, and “more so, the manner in which, the Registrar, Gujarat National Law University has acted on receipt of the report of the incident on 19.09.2023.”
“It seems that the University Authorities are making effort to cover up the whole issue, to save the image of the institution,” the court observed, noting that the complainant had still not been identified, and that the professor writing that no student had come to depose “reflects the insensitivity of the university authorities”.
During the hearing on 11 October, the lawyer appearing for GNLU informed the court that he would personally look into the matter in his capacity as the Gujarat advocate general to ensure that the the fact-finding panel is reconstituted with “independent respectable members of the society having no concern with the institution at all”.
The fact-finding committee, first constituted by the institute on 26 September, was then reconstituted on 20 October.
This new panel comprises former Gujarat high court judge Justice Harsha Devani, secretary of the Gujarat State Human Rights Commission Bhargavi Das, and Associate Prof. at the National Forensic Sciences University Surbhi Mathur, according to another email sent by the registrar on 20 October to the students.
Nearly four months on, the panel’s report made its way to the court in a sealed cover on 22 February, and it was opened on 28 February.
‘Trust gone down’
When the matter came up in November last year, the court was also informed that GNLU is taking adequate steps to sensitise the students about the gender issues and is adopting a “zero tolerance policy” regarding sexual harassment or violation of dignity of the students in any manner.
Emails seen by ThePrint show that the college organised a lecture on gender sensitisation and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act on 23 September.
It also organised a “half-day capacity-building programme” on the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act on 16 February. This was done in collaboration with the Gender Resource Centre of the Department of Women and Child Development, Gujarat. The training programme was conducted for all students, batch wise, and the last session was held on 2 March.
However, a student told ThePrint that the trust in the institution seems to have gone down since the posts.
“The trust has of course gone down since the incident…The POSH sessions are being held now, but this incident dates back to the last semester. Every Monday, we get a mandatory 70 percent attendance reminder. Why can’t the faculty send email reminders on ragging or harassment?”
“The college did not handle it very well,” the student asserted.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)