Assistant professor gets 10-year jail term for attempting to lure girl students for sexual favours

PTI

Virudhunagar (Tamil Nadu), April 30

A Fast Track Mahila court in Srivilliputhur here awarded 10-year imprisonment to suspended assistant professor Nirmala Devi, who was accused of enticing college girls to offer sexual favours to university’s higher officials.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 2.42 lakh on Devi.

She was sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) under Section 370 (offence of trafficking) of the IPC and fine of Rs 5,000, 10-year RI and a fine of Rs 25,000, five-year RI and Rs 2,000 fine, 10-year imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000, three-year RI and a fine of Rs 2 lakh, under various sections of the IPC, including the Information Technology Act and Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, according to Special Public Prosecutor M Chandrasekaran.

All the sentences will run concurrently, and it also included her current years in prison, he said.

Chandrasekaran said the state would go on an appeal against the acquittal of V Murugan, a faculty, and S Karuppasamy, a former research scholar, in the case. He claimed that witnesses from Madurai Kamaraj University had turned hostile.

The case pertains to Nirmala Devi, who while serving as an assistant professor of an arts college in Aruppukottai attempted to lure college girl students to provide sexual favours to officials of Madurai Kamaraj University.

The purported incident came to light after an audio clip went viral on social media. She was arrested on April 16, 2018, by the Aruppukottai town police following a complaint by the college secretary claiming that four female students had complained to him that Devi attempted to engage them to provide sexual favours in return for marks and financial support.

The case was transferred to Crime Branch-CID and during the investigation, Murugan and Karuppasamy purportedly involved in the offence were arrested.

Judge T Bagavathiammal had found Devi guilty on five counts on Monday and had pronounced the sentence today, Chandrasekaran told reporters.

He said the judge declined to show mercy as sought by Devi’s counsel, and that the judge had mentioned that only stringent punishment would serve as a deterrent to others.

Her counsel K Suresh Napolean had urged the court to be lenient towards Devi as she was a mother of two children. He later told reporters that he would go on an appeal against the verdict. 

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