A Dalit professor from Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur has been accused of filing a false SC/ST case against a Qatar-based woman and her entire family after she blocked him on facing harassment.
As per the FIR filed by Aruna (name changed), Dr. Kondru Sudheer Kumar- a Guest Faculty, Commerce and Business Administration Department at Acharya Nagarjuna University- got in touch with her following her query related to Ph.D. on a social media site. After exchanging contact Kondru agreed to work as Aruna’s co-guide for her Ph.D.
Subsequently, Kondru began to harass Aruna for making him a co-guide despite not clearing the eligibility criteria. The woman was then forced to block his number. As per the defendant, Kondru began saving her pictures, morphed her images and dug personal information with ulterior motives.
After chasing for weeks, Kondru extracted the phone numbers of Aruna’s family and called her father-in-law to threaten. When he could not succeed in getting a response, Kondru filed a false SC/ST atrocities case against Aruna and seven other members of her family including her husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law and parents.
Kondru in his FIR, a copy of which is in the possession of OpIndia, alleged that Aruna misused his work. Accusing her of plagiarism, Kondru claimed that she hacked into his account and deleted his research work BR Ambedkar and claimed that she and her family abused him for being a Dalit.
The plaintiff also mentioned that his family had to endure trauma because of Aruna’s atrocities which hampered his career.
Aruna was then forced to file a petition in Andhra Pradesh High Court pleading a stay on the arrest. She has also filed a case in Mangalore, her hometown, against Kondru as she did not receive much help from Guntur Police.
It is imperative to note that both the complainant and the defendant have specified in their respective complaints that the two have interacted only over the phone and social media platforms. As per Indian Kanoon, an incident of intimidation, insult or humiliation of a person belonging to SC/ST in “public view” is punishable.
Allegations against Kondru
Aruna in her petition, FIR and in an interview with OpIndia informed that Kondru who is a practising Christian as per his social media profiles (which has now been locked) and activities, continues to call himself a Hindu taking undue advantage of the reservation for SCs and STs. The petitioner claims, fearing his identity would be exposed Kondru refused to fulfil certain formalities which would have made him eligible for co-guide.
Aruna discovered only later that Kondru who introduced himself as an assistant professor was just a guest professor thereby making him ineligible for taking up the responsibility.
Additionally, as per Aruna’s FIR Kondru is also a habitual molester. “His ex-students had told me that Sudheer is a habitual molester and had molested a girl from their class and also girls from other batches and courses. His molestation episodes were brought to the attention of the college management, but it was ignored. It is also rumoured that in 2015, Kondru Sudheer was suspended for molesting a lady student for a period of about 3 months,” reads her FIR.
The petitioner also shared previous social media conversations of the students of the university who were privy to his misdeed.
Aruna also suspects the involvement of IPS PV Sunil Kumar who was in news recently for abusing his position by running a private missionary organization. “As per the instructions issued by the ADGP, CID AP Mangalagiri vide proceedings in….and registered the same as a FIR,” read the FIR filed by Kondru against Aruna and her family.
While speaking with OpIndia, Aruna urged that the judiciary must look into the blatant misuse of the SC/ST Act especially when the case is against a woman putting her family life and career at risk.
