The court ruled that allegations under the SC/ST Act and IPC were false and motivated by personal vendetta, emphasizing the need to prevent misuse of legal provisions.

JUDGMENT :

PRASHANT KUMAR, J.

1. Heard Sri Vinay Saran and Sri G.S. Chaturvedi, Senior Advocates assisted by Ms. Katyayini and Sri P.K. Mishra, learned counsel for the applicant, Sri Aishwarya Pratap Singh, learned counsel for O.P. No. 2 and Sri S.D. Pandey and Sri S.K. Chandraul, learned A.G.A. for the State-O.P. No. 1.

2. This is a case where a Professor had to pay a very heavy price for asking an Assistant Professor to take classes and teach properly. He was made an accused and had to face trial for at least eight years, and further had to face humiliation, stigma, for no fault of his own, and on the other hand, the complainant, by misusing the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (hereinafter referred as ‘the SC/ST Act’) had virtually threatened the other seniors from taking any action against her.

3. The instant application under Section 482 Cr.P.C. has been preferred by the applicant praying for quashing charge sheet dated 08.10.2016 including the entire proceeding in Case No. 689 of 2013, under Section 354C, 504, 506 of IPC and under Section 3(2)(va) of the SC/ST Act, (S.T. No. 127 of 2016) Police Station-Colonelganj, District-Allahabad pending in the Court of Special judge, SC/ST Act, Allahabad.

FACTUAL MATRIX

4. The facts of the case in brief are that O.P. No. 2 namely, Deep Shikha Sonkar was appointed as Assistant Professor in Department of Economics in University of Allahabad, and she joined in July, 2013 and at the time of her joining, Professor Jagdish Narain Purwar was the Head of Department. Prof. Jagdish Narain found working of the complainant unsatisfactory during her probation period and gave negative entry to her along with certain other Assistant Professors. Thereafter, Prof. Prahlad Kumar became the Head of Department of Economics on 15.02.2014, who also during the course of time evaluated the complainant and gave a negative report about her working.

1st Complaint

5. Expressing her annoyance and out of the grudge, because of the negative report, she filed a complaint to the Women’s Advisory Board against Professor Prahlad Kumar and two other lady professors namely Dr. Swati Jain and Dr. Rekha Gupta, which was received on 14.01.2016.

2nd Complaint

6. Not being satisfied with this, a second complaint dated 19.01.2016 was sent to the Vice Chancellor of the Allahabad University by the complainant against Professor Jagdish Naranin Purwar and Professor Prahlad Kumar, which was delivered on the same day.

3rd Complaint

7. Yet another complaint was made on 13.02.2016 to the Committee for Complaints Against Sexual Harassment (hereinafter referred as ‘CCASH’).

8. All the aforesaid complaints were assigned to a six member Committee for Complaints Against Sexual Harassment (CCASH) for its report by the then Vice Chancellor of the Allahabad University.

9. In the meantime, the applicant took charge as the Head of Department, Economics, University of Allahabad on 16.02.2016 and hence, the aforesaid Committee in its wisdom thought it proper to enquire the facts of the case from his also and thus the applicant clarified and provided certain documentary evidence regarding the allocation of rooms etc to the CCASH.

10. The aforesaid response of the applicant to the CCASH also weighed against the complaints of the respondent complainant and the Committee on 16.03.2016 resolved that all the allegations made by the respondent complainant in her three complaints against Prof. Prahlad Kumar, Prof. J.N. Purwar, Asst. Prof. Dr. Swati Jain and Asst. Prof. Dr. Rekha Gupta were false and were malafidely motivated.

11. On 23.02.2016, the then Dean, Faculty of Arts, Professor Jagdish Narain, to whom complaints were made by a number of students about competence of O.P. No. 2/complainant as well as her absence from the classes, wrote an official letter to Head of Department (Professor Man Mohan Krishna) to take action against O.P. No. 2 and Professor D.N. Oraon for their absence from the class. Over the leaf of the