Date: 27-07-2015

To,

The Vice Chancellor,

Jawaharlal Nehru University,

New Delhi- 110067

Subject: Regarding consistent harassment by my supervisor.

Dear Sir,

I, Ruby Rani, a final year M. Tech student of School of Computer and Systems Sciences (SC&SS), would like to bring to your kind attention the regular harassment meted out to me by my supervisor, Dr. T.V. Vijay Kumar.

For nearly a year now, my guide has been at it and I quietly bore all the indignities fearing reprisal. Matters came to a head last week, when I twice fainted on the eve of my dissertation-submission and had to be rushed to AIIMS. I collapsed again the next day in the office of the School Dean while completing the submission procedures. The Dean (Prof. R.K. Aggarwal) along with an assistant registrar took me to Safdarjung Hospital, where the doctors asked me to consult a psychiatrist.

Some of the important instances of torment are mentioned below:

Immediately after joining his lab, my supervisor told me of a protocol where a student shall work on the implementation process (programming part of dissertation) while another shall write the reports. He asked me to write the reports only. When I requested him to also allow me to work on programming so as to

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save myself from any plagiarism charges in the future, he snatched the lab key from me in September 2014, barely two months after beginning my research work. I still do not have the key at the time of writing this mail to you. You could very well imagine the anguish of a researcher crucially dependent on lab for her research work being locked out of the lab!This weird rule, to the best to my knowledge, is the only such in any of the SC&SS labs.

Notwithstanding all these hardships, I remained focused on completing my dissertation in time. Following his diktat, I started coming to the lab only if he or any other student were present. Imagine my plight coming on foot all the way from Chandrabhaga Hostel and finding the lab locked many a times! To add to my misery, I was later asked by him not to come to the lab in his absence. In order to overcome this problem and to avail Internet facility, I started frequenting the central library. I could still not meet my requirements for various software. I often worked in the labs of my batch mates and seniors. That too was unacceptable to my guide. He asked me not to go to the library and to study either at my room or come to his flat at the University Campus.

Right from the very beginning, he would make several calls on my cellphone from different numbers, some even during the odd hours. If you so wish, I could also provide you with the call-logs.He would mostly be talking inane like ‘what I have been up to,’ ‘asking my whereabouts,’ ‘what is there in the mess for lunch/ dinner’ and would also ‘comment on my dresses.’ “Bahut stylish lag rahi ho, simple hi aachi lagti ho,” he once told me. At times he would call me to his chamber and try to be over-friendly talking about his personal life especially of his girlfriends, movies he had watched and would recommend me to watch the same. One fine day, he made me watch a soap opera in the lab! I was

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also told not to interact with friends, isolate myself so that I could find true friends. “Uski nazar tumhare liye theek nahi hai! Usse door hi raha karo,” he opined on a particular classmate of mine. He would also force me to leave the Campus on weekends (to visit one of my lab mates home in Delhi) as people spending most of their time on the Campus get spoiled.

Calling me to his flat on the pretext of academic discussion, I was often made to cook for him as well as others and do the dishes. He would also interrupt me whenever I tried to study. In February this year, I joined an internship related to my dissertation work with a firm in Gurgaon. He permitted me to join the internship on the condition that I would present myself whenever called. I would work during the weekdays, study in the library at nights and also took leave twice to meet him. In the interim, I kept him updated about the progress of my research work by e-mail. He would never give any suggestion but would claim in reply to have done the same.Further, I would go to the lab on weekends for discussions. I was again asked to visit his flat. “Yeh tumhara kam hai, mera nahi! Main lab nahi aunga, tumhe hi ghar par aane padega,” he would tell me on phone.

During the final days of my submission, he did not respond to any of my e-mails between July 1- July19. Desperate, I again wrote to him in the wee hours on July 20. He has been torturing me since then. He procrastinated putting his signature on my dissertation. He eventually signed on it in my absence while I was in Safdarjung Hospital with the School Dean. I am yet to submit my dissertation formally.

I am afraid that any fair evaluation of my work could be done with him being my supervisor. I am also apprehensive that he could delay my final result.

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I, therefore, request you to kindly change my guide and the evaluation panel and initiate proper action against him. I hope for justice from your office at the earliest.

The kind of agony I underwent all these months and am still going through, I would be left with no option but to approach the National Commission for Women (NCW) and the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD).

Thanking You,

Yours Sincerely,

Ruby Rani

M. Tech/Ph. D

School of Computer & Systems Sciences (SC&SS),

JNU, New Delhi-110067.

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