Two female students - one from Daulat Ram College (DRC) and another from Bharti College - had filed sexual harassment complaints against their teachers in January and February, respectively
Several Delhi University (DU) colleges held elections for the post of students' representatives on their Internal Complaints Committees (ICC) panel - a mandatory autonomous body to deal with sexual harassment cases - on Monday. The move comes a month after two cases of sexual harassment were reported from DU.
Two female students - one from Daulat Ram College (DRC) and another from Bharti College - had filed sexual harassment complaints against their teachers in January and February, respectively. The cases triggered a spate of protests led by Pinjra Tod, a women's collective, prompting university to direct colleges for an immediate constitution of ICC, each with a presiding officer (woman), two faculty members, two non-teaching staff, a representative from an NGO and three elected student representative (preferably women). It also asked them to conduct elections on March 12 and declare results the same day.
Following the guidelines, several colleges, including SGTB Khalsa, Kirori Mal, Lady Sri Ram (LSR) and Shivaji college held the elections on Monday. "We have conducted fair and democratic elections and elected three students' representative," said Rukshana Shroff, a faculty member at LSR.
Shivaji College, in fact, elected four student representatives as the top three contenders were male. So, the college included a female student, who was fourth in the race. "ICC will be more approachable now. Students often hesitate to contact a teacher but with a friend like person in the council, they can talk about their grievances freely," said Shivangi Singh, an elected member at Shivaji.
Meanwhile, in DRC, while students claimed to have no information about the election, Principal Savita Rai said, "Only three students gave their nominations. So, they have been declared as students'representatives. We did not require to conduct an election."
Similar confusion was reported at Sri Venkateswara College, where students complained that the administration had called off the elections at the last minute. Whereas, Principal Hemalatha Reddy said, "Several activities are going on at the campus presently. So the college has asked for more time from the administration. We will conduct elections later this week."
St Stephens and Gargi college will also hold their elections later in the week.
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