Prayagraj, 23 February (HS). Allahabad High Court has given big relief to three retired professors of Allahabad. The court canceled the FIR registered against the three professors at Colonelganj police station eight years ago. While imposing damages on the woman assistant professor Deep Shikha Sonkar who complained, the three professors have been asked to pay Rs 5 lakh each.
This order was given by the bench of Justice Prashant Kumar to Prof. Manmohan Krishna, Prof. Prahlad Kumar and Prof. Accepting the petition filed by Javed Akhtar demanding quashing of the criminal action.
The court said that the statements taken under sections 161 and 164 of CrPC do not make out any offense against the accused. Therefore, if the Court does not intervene in this matter and does not exercise the inherent powers under Section 482 of CrPC, it will fail in its duty.
In this matter, the assistant professor of the department had alleged against the three professors that on the afternoon of August 4, 2016, she was called to her room by the then head of the department (Manmohan Krishna) and when she went, Professor Prahlad and Professor Javed Akhtar were sitting with the head of the department. All three of them stared at him and used caste based words against him. Scolded him, made him stand and stare at him for an hour and also used dirty words in between. The female assistant professor complained against the three professors several times but she was not listened to. It was said on behalf of the petitioners that the complainant had deliberately implicated them. Because, the heads of the departments had not expressed satisfaction on the report given by him (the complainant) regarding his educational work.
The Executive Council of the University also investigated the complainant's complaint but did not find any truth in it. On behalf of the petitioners, the orders given by the Supreme Court in other cases were also cited. The trial court took direct cognizance of the case. Whereas, after being handed over by the Magistrate, cognizance should have been taken. Court procedures were also not followed. Although the government advocate protested, the court quashed the FIR lodged against the three in view of the facts and circumstances.