Sexual harassment of students by Jind and Uchana principals: Haryana Assembly forms committee and issues reference

CHANDIGARH: On Friday, the Haryana Assembly secretariat issued a notification about a four-member committee formed to investigate the matter of sexual harassment by the then Principal of Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Uchana Mandi (Jind).

Significantly, following the verbal clash between deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala and former education minister Geeta Bhukkal on December 15, the first day of the winter session, the House decided to investigate the incident through a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court.

During the next sitting on December 18, another round of verbal exchanges ensued between Geeta Bhukkal, Dushyant Chautala, and leader of opposition Bhupinder Hooda, triggered by Dushyant's altered statement.

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition pressed for the entire incident to be investigated by the house committee instead of handing it over to the Punjab and Haryana high court. Amidst high drama, the government resubmitted the issue to the Business Advisory Committee (BAC), which recommended the house committee for the investigation.

Therefore, the house decided to form a fact-finding committee under the chairmanship of school education minister Kanwar Pal Gujjar to investigate the mentioned incidents from 2005 to 2023 discussed in the sittings on December 15 and 18, 2023. The committee will submit its report in the first meeting of the next session of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha.

The committee members comprise MLAs Aseem Goel, Bharat Bhushan Batra, and Amarjeet Dhanda. Advocate General Haryana, B.R. Mahajan, will serve as a special invitee to provide legal guidance on the issue.