For Tarmon E Fernandez, a teacher in Don Bosco Matriculation Higher Secondary School, an 18-month long agony that began in December, 2010, when parents of a few students filed complaints against him with the school and dragged him to court, came to an end recently with two enquiry committees finding that the charges were ‘not proved’. The school management also suspended him in May, 2011. Now, as the management has decided to let him join service on January 3, 2013, he feels vindicated and relieved that his trials and tribulations are over. Among the charges were the use of abusive language in class and that he misused the classroom as a platform to heap abuses against some students, other teachers, including women teachers, and the school. The High Court, in an interim order on February 4, 2011, appointed a senior advocate as advocate commissioner to conduct a preliminary inquiry and submit a report. Fernandez’s lawyer, raising several issues, prayed for passing orders without reference to the report and requested for its rejection. The court rejected the report.
Subsequently, in an order dated April 7, 2011, the court disposed of the writ petition with a direction that the school correspondent appoint a retired judicial officer to conduct an enquiry against Fernandez and also constitute a special committee to enquire into allegations of sexual harassment of the women staff. The retired district judge, in his report on July 2, said that the charges were not proved. The Special committee too, on June 23, concluded that the charges against him did “not amount to sexual harassment”.
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