The Bombay High Court on Thursday upheld the expulsion of a law student from Maharashtra National Law University (MNLU) for repeated sexual harassment of female students, as determined by the university’s Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). However, the court has restricted his expulsion to one academic year 2024-25, observing that expulsion for an “unspecified” period would lead to the student’s “academic death”.
“An order of expulsion for an indefinite and unspecified period would be harsh resulting in ‘academic death’ of ‘X’ (petitioner). It would result in taking away the education and training undergone since his admission to the course in 2019-20. In effect, he would never be able to complete the BA. LLB (Honours) course at the MNLU in future,” a bench of Justices AS Chandurkar and Rajesh Patil. They also stated that this would deprive the student of his education and have a lasting impact on his academic life.
The court restricted the expulsion to one academic year and ordered the petitioner to perform community service throughout the 2024-2025 academic year under the Vice Chancellor’s guidance. The bench reasoned that this penalty was proportionate to the misconduct, adding, “Loss of an academic year in these facts would, in our view, be proportionate to the misconduct of ‘X.’ It would put him behind his entire batch of 2019-24 by one year and during that period he would be unable to take up any other academic activity.”
The Vice Chancellor, after expelling him, permitted him to appear for the ninth and tenth semester exams but has withheld his results for the outcome of the instant proceedings. Ideally, the petitioner would have completed the BA.LLB (Honours) course at the end of academic year 2023-24. However, the same has not happened as results for his last two exams have not been declared.
The petitioner challenged the June 2024 expulsion order. His counsel Mihir Desai argued that the investigation was flawed and biased. He claimed that the incident occurred outside university premises, where the ICC had no jurisdiction. However, complainant’s counsel Navroz Seervai highlighted the petitioner as a “repeat offender” with a history of harassing multiple students.
The court also directed MNLU to consider ICC recommendations regarding event venues to prevent similar incidents, emphasising the importance of not serving alcohol at university-related gatherings.
