Procedural violations in the sexual harassment investigation of 17 female students

Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) has alleged procedural violations in the investigation into the sexual harassment complaint lodged by 47 female students with the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) of the university after the first-year students’ party.

Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU), in a letter to Vice-Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, accused the committee of diluting the case by treating it as an “individual complaint” rather than a collective one.

The union said on Wednesday that 47 female students from the Center for Social Systems Research (CSSS) filed a collective complaint with the ICC regarding allegations of sexual harassment and violence during the CSSS freshmen’s party held at the Convention Center on Tuesday, October 22.

However, the union said the complainants were informed that President Vandana Mishra would not meet all the survivors and asked them to appoint five representatives to present the case.

JNUSU, in its letter on Friday, alleged that four student representatives arrived late during the ICC meeting on Thursday, taking advantage of which ICC members tried to intimidate the sole complainant and pressured him to give a private statement.

The union said this was an effort to break down the collective nature of the complaint. “Survivors disagree because the complaint was made collectively, but they were trying to narrow it down to five separate incidents of abuse,” the letter said.

According to JNUSU, during the statement the complainant was asked, “Why didn’t you go to the head of your center first?” It was reported that “irrelevant and frightening questions” such as were asked. and “Who told you about the ICC process?”

The letter also stated, “These questions do not concern the jurisdiction of the ICC and were intended to threaten the survivors and obtain information about the case from them in order to weaken our case.”

The union also raised concerns about an employee recording a video during a closed-door session, compromising the complainant’s anonymity.

JNUSU representatives and CSSS students intervened, demanding that a JNUSU representative be allowed to attend the statements of the survivors, that a restraining order be issued without naming the survivors, and that the complaint be treated as a collective complaint. They also insisted that the videos taken during the secret meeting be deleted immediately.

However, Mishra reportedly rejected these demands and brought in external personnel from the Campus Security Office (CSO), which JNUSU claimed was an attempt to “protect” the accused.