00:00We have Dr. Himanshu Rai, Director of the Indian Institute of Management at Indore.
00:05Himanshu, the faculty forum bagged an accused colleague within days, before any probe.
00:11When the family alleges caste harassment, does that kind of solidarity tell a Dalit student that the system is already
00:17on the other side?
00:20Actually, Maria, I don't think so, because we are trying to bring a binary over here.
00:28However, the solidarity is absolutely legitimate.
00:33The prejudgment is not.
00:34And therefore, a faculty association is perfectly entitled to say that a colleague deserves a due process and should not
00:43be presumed guilty.
00:45However, at the same time, while the investigation is still underway,
00:48if there is an unequivocal or a collective voice coming from the institution that creates an impression that conclusions have
00:58already been made,
01:00that may be detrimental to this entire concept of equality.
01:05And therefore, what I would say is that the due process belongs to both.
01:09It belongs to the professor so that there is a fair hearing and it also belongs to the students and
01:15the family that they get a proper hearing.
01:21Institutes investigate their deans and professors.
01:24For an SCST Act complaint, can that ever be called justice?
01:28Or do you think that there should be an outside panel which should be followed for ensuring the right process?
01:38Maria, we have to differentiate between two things.
01:40One is the institutional inquiry process and the other is a criminal investigation.
01:46In this case, what has happened is that one has been followed by the other.
01:50And therefore, these two things seem to be missed.
01:53You know, they're mixing up over here.
01:55The moment you have something that comes out, you know, first of all, it's an extremely unfortunate and a tragic
02:02incident.
02:03And my deepest condolences to the students' family.
02:05But the moment something of this sort happens, the first thing that is initiated is an internal inquiry,
02:12which is kind of a fact-finding mission.
02:15And once the fact-finding mission sees that there is certain substance,
02:19I think that is where you invite independent external members.
02:23However, in this case, it has become a police case because it has been transferred to the crime branch.
02:28There's an SCST Act, which is in place.
02:31And therefore, there is a statutory police investigation over here.
02:35So because there is a criminal case that has been registered over here,
02:41that ought not preclude the internal fact-finding.
02:45However, the internal fact-finding, I'm 100% sure, is not going to cloud or impact what the criminal investigation
02:54is going to say.
02:55And likewise, the proceedings of the criminal investigation are not going to actually impact the internal fact-finding.
03:00You see, internal fact-finding is not merely about looking at this particular case only.
03:06Internal fact-finding is also necessary because it can also evidence or bring out that,
03:11is there a systemic issue that needs to be addressed?
03:14Yes, I agree.
03:15So I think both are independent things.
03:18The largest sentiment of it being a systemic issue that has to be addressed.
03:22So let's look at the flip side of the argument.
03:25Does removing a student from an examination over a malpractice,
03:28because in this case, the allegation is that he used a smartphone and an AI to solve the question paper,
03:35really justify the charge of caste atrocity, even if the student has, you know, in this particular case,
03:43certainly tragically died by suicide?
03:47Not at all. Not at all.
03:51I think if a student is caught using unfair means, including AI, then in that case, it is not just
04:00the institute's, you know, responsibility.
04:06It's actually something that needs to be done any which way.
04:09Okay. So if a student was caught, the institute had both the right and the responsibility to make sure that
04:17it acted under its academic rule.
04:19Second, you know, you mentioned about the tragic death, and I agree that this is a tragic death.
04:23But a tragic death does not automatically, retrospectively, you know, transform an otherwise legitimate action into a vicious or a
04:33criminal one.
04:34However, at the same time, there was this academic violation does not preclude that there cannot be an independent caste
04:43allegation charge.
04:44So I think we have to look at these two separately and make sure that we are doing justice,
04:49because all three of them, all three scenarios can exist at the same time that the student was actually using
04:55certain means,
04:57which is completely unacceptable.
04:59Caste discrimination is unacceptable.
05:01And then convincing anybody that this happened or this did not happen or precluding other possibilities,
05:10that can also happen at the same time.
05:12So what we must ensure is that at this moment, we need to, first of all, assuage the feelings of
05:19the students and then make sure that we stick to the right path.
05:23One action cannot justify the other.
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