The Gujarat High Court on Monday took cognisance of a news report about rape allegations by a second-year law student against her batchmate and harassment of a queer student at the Gujarat National Law University, reported Live Law.
A bench of Justices AS Supehia and MR Mengdey sought a report with the names of members of the Internal Complaint Committee and issued a notice to the registrar and head of academic affairs at the law university on the matter.
This comes after the Ahmedabad Mirror reported on the allegations on Friday. The report cited anonymous posts on a social media platform, where a student had written that they were “made to feel bad about being queer.”
“I was openly bashed for not being liked by anyone in the boys hostel and how I do not belong there,” said the student. “There is no grievance redressal mechanism where I can take this up.”
Another student posted that she was raped by a batchmate after he got her drunk. “I was not in my senses and he raped me,” wrote the student. “He took my naked videos and threatened to leak the videos if I raised an alarm or talked about it. His friend is also aware about it.”
According to Ahmedabad Mirror, a spokesperson of the law school stated that they have not received a formal complaint from the students.
“Firstly, I would like to clarify that GNLU indeed has established mechanisms in place to address grievances and concerns raised by our students,” said the spokesperson. “Specifically, we have a robust Internal Complaints Committee, as mandated by The POSH Act [(Prevention of Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Act], for addressing and resolving any complaints related to sexual harassment.”
Taking note of the allegations, the High Court has said that they raise “an issue of grave concern which has a direct impact on the psychological and physical well-being of students”.
“The report does not suggest any action taken by administration for want of formal complaint which in our opinion would not be a correct approach,” the court said, according to Bar and Bench.
In view of this, it directed the law school to identify the students, record their statements and maintain confidentiality. Norms or Standard Operating Procedures adopted by the school to tackle student ragging incidents also need to be presented before the court.
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