Andheri magistrate issues show cause notice to PI and SI of Juhu police station as well as DCP Zone IX, asking why they shouldn't face a contempt of court case
The woman was so disturbed by the ragging that she had to drop out of the course, badly hampering her career. Representation pic
The Andheri metropolitan magistrate court has slammed the Juhu police for delaying the probe into a ragging complaint filed in 2015. The magistrate, who was hearing an application by the victim’s father, has issued a show cause notice to senior inspector and police inspector (PI), and DCP Zone IX, asking why they shouldn’t face a contempt of court case.
ADVERTISEMENT
The complainant had approached the Andheri court in July this year after police allegedly did not investigate the case. Hearing the application in July, magistrate R R Khan directed Juhu police to investigate the case further and directed the Zone IX deputy commissioner of police to monitor the probe. Magistrate Khan issued the show cause notice on December 22 after police failed to abide by his order.
The incident took place in September 2014 at Pravin Gandhi College of Law. Prakash Sheth, the father of the 20-year-old student reported it to the principal but he didn’t take any action. The woman was in the second year at the time. “We approached the Juhu police, but they didn’t take a complaint. An inspector of the Juhu police station visited the college and gave a sweet lecture to the accused and the principal. The accused has a relative at the police station who is of the PI rank,” the father told mid-day.
Sheth alleged that as the principal and police didn’t act on his complaints, the ragging continued, and his daughter slipped into depression. “Ultimately, unable to bear constant harassment, she did not attend college. One day, the principal cancelled her exam permission on the grounds of minimum attendance. While this ruined her career, the accused students were protected by the college. The principal issued a suspension order only on 13 February 2015, but for merely seven days,” he said.
The Juhu police had filed an FIR after Sheth filed a writ petition before the Bombay High Court in April 2015. “The Juhu police had registered the FIR without taking our statements. The FIR was filed under Sections 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 107 (abetment), 109 (punishment of abetment), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the IPC,” he said. Sheth added, “The Juhu police had dropped the Sections of the Maharashtra Prohibition of Ragging Act, 1999, and added it only after the Bombay HC reprimanded them. They also assigned a woman officer to the case for further investigation.”
“Police filed the charge sheet in January 2016 and dropped the names of the principal and one of the three accused, and did not inform us,” he said, adding that he approached the Andheri court later and got access to the charge sheet. “I found out that most of the investigation was not done at all and valuable documents were not recovered by the police,” he said. A source from the college said, “We have zero tolerance to ragging, and the allegations against us are not true. We conducted an internal probe and didn’t find any ragging. Also the Mumbai University’s enquiry did not find any ragging as far as this case is concerned.”
What happened in September 2014
In the complaint, the woman alleged that three students were playing with shoes during a lecture and she got hit by one and fell unconscious for a few minutes. She then informed her father, who complained to the principal, but no action was taken. The father alleged that she faced ragging on multiple occasions on and off campus due to the lack of any action after the first. “On over eight occasions, after we filed an FIR, the accused wrote FIR against my daughter’s name on the attendance sheet. Also, every time my daughter entered the classroom, students would make way for her, saying ‘hat jao nahi to ye FIR kar degi’. They would make fun of her even outside the campus,” the father said.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
