New Delhi, Aug. 10: Jawaharlal Nehru University has ignored a teacher's appeals to reconstitute an inquiry committee against her that is headed by an academic she had once testified against in a sexual harassment case.

Political science professor Nivedita Menon has been served with a final notice to depose before the committee, which is probing "the role of faculty members" in the storming of an academic council meeting by students last December 26 and a demonstration two days later.

Several students had barged into the academic council meeting and chanted slogans demanding reduction of the weight given to the oral interview in admission to research courses. Nine students were suspended.

On December 28, Menon, chairperson of the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory at JNU's School of International Studies, addressed a student protest in front of the administrative block, defying an administrative ban on protests at the spot.

After an executive council meeting on January 3, vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar formed an inquiry committee headed by JNU executive council member Bidyut Chakrabarty, who happens to be a professor with Delhi University's political science department, where Menon had worked earlier.

During that stint, Menon had publicly testified against Chakrabarty in connection with a sexual harassment complaint by an employee of Delhi University's Gandhi Bhavan. The university's apex complaints committee had found Chakrabarty guilty in 2007.

Chakrabarty petitioned Delhi High Court and later the Supreme Court, which appointed a commissioner to record witness statements and pass them on to the apex complaints committee. Following this, the apex committee confirmed Chakrabarty's guilt again in 2010.

The report was tabled at Delhi University's executive council in 2012, which confirmed Chakrabarty's debarment from administrative posts and supervisory duties for three years (2007 to 2010).

In 2015, then President Pranab Mukherjee nominated Chakrabarty to JNU's executive council for a two-year term in his capacity as Visitor to the university.

As chairman of the inquiry committee, Chakrabarty wrote to Menon on July 12 asking her to depose on July 20.

On July 19, Menon wrote to the vice-chancellor saying: "I am apprehensive that given my role as a witness in the enquiry that found him to have committed sexual harassment, a committee chaired by Prof Bidyut Chakrabarty will not be impartial in any enquiry against me."

She added: "An apprehension that there is likely to be prejudice or animus towards witnesses such as myself in that case is not unfounded. I therefore request that the executive council reconstitute the inquiry committee."

Menon also asked for the composition of the committee, the timetable for the inquiry, the terms of reference, a copy of the minutes of the January 3 executive council meeting that resolved to set up an inquiry, the service rule under which the inquiry had been ordered, the rules and procedures that the inquiry committee was to employ, and the evidence collected so far.

She then received another letter from Chakrabarty on July 20, asking her to depose on August 1, following which she wrote to the vice-chancellor again on July 21 seeking reconstitution of the committee.

On July 28, registrar Pramod Kumar wrote to Menon confirming the receipt of her letters and telling her: "In this connection, you are requested to kindly come and depose before the committee in the next meeting and see evidences, if any, and subsequently raise questions, if any, before the committee."

The Telegraph has accessed copies of the communication between Menon and Chakrabarty, the vice-chancellor and the registrar. Jagadesh Kumar and Chakrabarty did not respond to emails, calls and text messages from this newspaper.

An office memorandum ---- No. 39/40/70-Establishment (A) ---- issued on November 9, 1972, by the then Union department of personnel and administrative reforms under the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, says: "Only those inquiry officers who are free from bias should be appointed by the disciplinary authority to conduct departmental inquiries.

"It is further been (sic) provided that wherever an application is moved by a government servant, against whom disciplinary proceedings are initiated, against the inquiry officer on grounds of bias, the proceedings should be stayed and the application referred to the appropriate reviewing authority for considering the matter and passing appropriate orders thereon."

On August 1, Menon received a final notice from Chakrabarty to depose on August 14, "failing which", he wrote, "it will be assumed that you have nothing to say on this matter".

Menon told this newspaper: "Whatever I had to say on the matter was communicated to the vice-chancellor, copies of which were sent to Professor Chakrabarty as well, so he cannot say I have nothing to say!

"In my case the attack is directly political. I'm being 'inquired' into for supposedly disrupting the academic council, that is, for raising questions about the ways in which the vice-chancellor is subverting procedures and norms.

"The second charge is that I addressed teachers and students outside the administrative block. The administration cannot decide where and when we will address our own students and colleagues as long as we are not blocking them from their routine work."

Menon has faced police complaints and protests by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad here and in Jodhpur over her lectures on the violence in Kashmir.

A group of lawyers assaulted her and other teachers present when student activist Kanhaiya Kumar was produced in the Patiala House Courts after being arrested for sedition last year.

Economics professor Surajit Mazumdar, an executive council member, told this newspaper: "Till date we have not seen any notification regarding this inquiry committee. Its members are unknown, as are the rules under which it has been set up. Professor Chakrabarty has been sending letters to people, including Professor Menon. On whose authority he has done so is not known so far."

Contacted by this newspaper, the registrar reiterated: "Professor Menon can take up her objections in front of the committee. She is not barred from saying anything she wants to."

He added that the other two members of the inquiry committee were Chandra Shakher, an executive council member and retired IIT Delhi professor; and Sushma Yadav, a University Grants Commission member and professor of public policy and governance at the Indian Institute of Public Administration here.