Bhubaneswar, July 15: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) here has termed a PhD student's allegation of sexual harassment against a senior professor as baseless.

The matter first came to light when the woman student lodged a complaint to the institute's director in 2016. She had also written to the institute's director, chief minister and even the Prime Minister seeking their intervention in the matter. Later, she took it up with the State Women's Commission and the National Commission for Women.

The student, who hails from Bengal, has alleged that she and her husband, who is also a PhD scholar at the institute, have been mentally tortured by the professor.

The institute, on the other hand, termed the allegation as baseless.

Today, the institute said in a statement that it strongly condemned the contents of a news report about harassment of the student by a professor of the institute.

The statement said a PhD student, who had got admitted in the institute in July 2011 and had since been working under a professor of the institute, lodged the complaint on October 6, 2016 about harassment by him after completing almost a five-year tenure under him.

The statement added that on receipt of the complaint, the matter was immediately referred to the internal complaint committee to inquire.

The committee, after a thorough inquiry, submitted its report on January 27, 2017 and said that it had not found any substance in the complaint and cleared the supervisor from all allegations.

However, the student asked for further inquiry into the case. In a statement, the student said she had been a victim of sexual harassment since 2012. "My husband was mentally harassed when he protested against the professor. Despite approaching top officials, no one came for help since the professor is an influential person," she said.

A senior institute administrator told The Telegraph that the allegations were made up and completely baseless.

"The issue came to light after the student completed her tenure in the said programme. If she had been harassed by the professor, she might have complained much earlier, why now?" asked the administrator.

IIT Bhubaneswar director R.V. Rajakumar said the institute was very transparent in its approach and procedure. "We conducted the inquiry in an unbiased manner. We also submitted the report to the central and state government offices as well as the central and state women commissions since the girl had reached out to them and they to us in later period," said Rajakumar.

This is not the first time that the institute has faced such allegations of sexual harassment.

In April 2014, two MTech students of school of infrastructure had brought allegations of sexual harassment against a professor of the same school.

The institute had gone though a similar procedure then and found the professor guilty. It also placed the professor under suspension in December 2014.