Legislative committee probes allegations of sexual harassment against school principal in Haryana

The Fact Finding Committee of the Legislative Assembly has started investigation into the case of sexual harassment of 142 girl students against the Principal of Government School, Uchana, Jind, Haryana. The investigation was handed over to this committee after the allegations of Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala. The committee has summoned the report related to this case from Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) of School Education Department Sudhir Rajpal and Director General of Police (DGP) Shatrujit Kapoor.

A report has been sought from the Education Department on the complaints received against the Principal so far and his working style. The DGP has sought information on when a complaint came to the police against the accused principal and when a DDR or FIR was filed against him. The police have also been asked as to when and what action was taken against the principal.

Education Minister Kanwar Pal Gurjar has been made the chairman of the committee formed after the uproar in the Assembly. Apart from this, Rohtak MLA BB Batra, Ambala City MLA Aseem Goyal, Julana MLA Amarjeet Singh Dhanda have been included as members. Whereas Advocate General Baldev Raj Mahajan has been included in the committee as a special invitee.

There was an uproar for two days in the winter session of the Assembly held last year regarding the Uchana case of Jind. In this matter, there was a dispute between Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala and former Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal and both of them had made serious allegations against each other. Dushyant had alleged that this principal had also been accused of sexual harassment in 2005 and 2011-12.
There was also talk of an agreement being reached in the Panchayat in 2012 at the Jhajjar residence of the then Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal. At the same time, Geeta Bhukkal had called it a lie.

After a heated argument between Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala and Congress MLA Geeta Bhukkal, it was decided to get the matter investigated by the sitting judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court. Later, after opposition from the Congress, it was decided to conduct the investigation by forming a committee of the Assembly instead of the High Court judge. The committee will investigate all types of allegations against the accused principal from 2005 to 2023.