Alvi upholds penalty against harassment accused

President says those women who come forward with harassment complaints face an uphill task of proving it

ISLAMABAD:

President Dr Arif Alvi on Sunday rejected Dr Humayun Iqbal’s petition against denovo inquiry against him and upheld the penalty of termination of service imposed upon him by the Anti-harassment Committee and syndicate of the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU), Islamabad.

The president observed that very few women come forward with the complaint of harassment and those who do so have to face an uphill task of proving it.

He observed that the said case has been lingering since 2017 and it would be unfair to delay it any further.

He maintained that the decision of the inquiry committee regarding the imposition of major penalty of termination of service was well constituted which was also upheld by the syndicate of the university.

According to the background of the case, the complainant, a graduate trainee, had filed a harassment complaint against the accused before the VC of SZABMU, Islamabad, who referred the matter to the Anti-harassment Committee.

The committee imposed a major penalty of termination of service upon the accused in 2018. Furthermore, the syndicate of the university approved the recommendations of the committee and terminated the accused from service.

The accused filed an appeal before the ombudsman, assailing the said penalty. The learned ombudsman set aside the findings/recommendations of the Anti-harassment Committee and ordered to send the case back to the organisation for conducting a denovo inquiry to provide both the parties full opportunity of hearing and producing the evidence.

Subsequently, both the accused and the complainant filed the representations with the president against the decision of the ombudsman.

During the course of proceedings, it was informed that the history of previous conduct of the accused reflected that he had sexually assaulted women in the past.