Kerala professor who was accused of sexual harassment by students acquitted
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Thiruvananthapuram: A retired college professor in Idukki district has been acquitted in multiple sexual harassment cases filed against him by students.
A court found that Professor Anand Viswanath (61) was falsely accused after he caught the students committing malpractice during an examination, The Indian Express reported.
However, the verdict comes eleven years after he was arrested in the cases.
Following students’ complaint, Professor Anand Viswanath who headed the department of Economics at Government College, Munnar, was chargesheeted in four cases.
The complainants alleged that Professor Anand Viswanath sexually harassed them at the examination hall.
Subsequently, the Chief Judicial Magistrate court at Devikulam, near Munnar handed him three years’ jail term in two cases in 2021, while acquitting him in two other cases.
Following which, Professor Anand Viswanath approached the Additional Sessions Court challenging the conviction which the court eventually set aside.
Handing the verdict, the judge noted that the testimonies by four students had ‘contradictions, omissions and embellishments’, which were not corroborated with evidence given by independent witnesses, according to The Indian Express.
The court found the evidences brought on record were not sufficient enough, thus concluding that the professor was falsely implicated in the crime.
The professor, also serving as the additional chief superintendent of examinations at the college, caught the students belonging to the CPI(M)’s student wing SFI for malpractice at postgraduate exam in 2014.
Reporting them to the invigilator on duty, the professor handed over the materials seized from the students.
A month later, the students, all women, filed joint complaint with the Education Minister and the State Women’s Commission.
They alleged that the professor had sexually harassed them in the examination hall on different occasions between August and September, 2014.
Subsequently, four separate FIRs were filed against him two months after the alleged incidents.