The Madras High Court on Wednesday granted anticipatory bail to two professors from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) in a case booked against many individuals, including a few students, for having raped and sexually harassed a Dalit research scholar between 2016 and 2020.
Justice G. Jayachandran ordered that the professors G. Edamana Prasad and Ramesh L. Gardas, who were guide and co-guide of the victim research scholar, should not leave the State without prior intimation to the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) sleuths, probing the case.
He also made it clear that the petitioners must not leave the country without the permission of the trial court and observed that permission shall be granted if they had to visit foreign countries for academic purposes. The judge also directed them to appear before the investigating officer whenever necessary.
The judge agreed with the petitioners’ counsel K.P. Anantha Krishna that the allegations in the First Information Report (FIR) were primarily against the first accused P. Kingshuk Debsharma of West Bengal, a co-scholar, and that the two professors had only been accused of not having prevented him.
Though Government Advocate S. Santhosh stated that the FIR had been altered and provisions under the Scheduled Cases and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 had been included, the judge said there was no prima facie material to prove that the two petitioners had committed offences under the Act. He pointed out that the Supreme Court had recently held that anticipatory bail could be granted even in cases booked under the SC/ST Act, if no prima facie case had been made out. He also took note that the prime accused had already been granted anticipatory bail and the prosecution had now taken steps to get it cancelled.
In their petition, the two professors stated they serve in the department of chemistry of IIT-M and teach B. Tech, dual degree and M.Sc., besides guiding Ph.D. and post-doctoral research scholars. They pointed out that the other accused named in the FIR were the students of the chemistry department.
Claiming that the case of prosecution was that the first two accused had harassed the complainant mentally, physically and sexually on multiple occasions, the petitioners said it was an admitted case that the complainant, as well as the accused students, had travelled together on leisure trips on their own.
