Harassment charges: Probe body exonerates QAU professor

Student who levelled charges has already been punished for cheating .

ISLAMABAD:

The harassment probe committee of Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) has exonerated a professor accused of sexual harassment by a female student.

The committee “respectfully” absolved the professor as the student’s allegations were unsubstantiated by the evidence presented before the committee.

In June this year, accusations were leveled against Ajmal Waheed, in-charge of the Quaid-i-Azam School of Management Sciences.

A three-member probe committee was immediately formed to look into the accusations and the case was referred to the inquiry committee that was already probing another harassment case.

Interestingly, the earlier committee which was officially functioning under the 2010 harassment law resigned when its recommendations to terminate a professor who was found guilty of sexual harassment were ignored by the varsity high-ups.

QAU vice-chancellor said the teacher has been exonerated and nothing has been decided against the student who accused the teacher for the alleged crime which she could not prove.

A disciplinary committee had already made a case against that student for using unfair means in examinations. That committee also decided against the student and directed she repeat the semester—the minimum punishment a student is awarded for cheating. The body is also probing the harassment case against another teacher of the anthropology department.

Legal lacuna

Meanwhile, questions have been raised about the legality and applicability of the Protection of Women against Harassment at the Workplace Act, 2010. Earlier this year, Pakistan Peoples Party Senator Farhatullah Babar submitted an amendment in Parliament to explicitly bring colleges and universities under the purview of the act. For educational institutions, implementation of the law does not seem to be a priority.

In 2013, the QAU syndicate removed the controller examinations on the recommendations of the inquiry committee but he was later restored when former president Asif Ali Zardari, who was also the chancellor of the university, overturned the punishment.

The official approached the president and argued that the law under which he had been removed was not applicable to the university since the educational institution did not fall under the category of workplaces.

The presidency first consulted the Ministry of Law, which termed the act “incomplete and faulty” and set the case aside. The QAU is reviewing two cases of sexual harassment but following the letter from the presidency the cases are being investigated under the Efficiency and Discipline Rules, 1973.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2014.