Krishnesh Mehta, a professor at Ahmedabad’s National Institute of Design (NID) had his tenure terminated on October 5 after being found guilty of sexual misconduct. Mehta, who was a faculty member at NID for around 25 years, has also been barred from entering the institute’s campus.
In an official statement, NID’s director Pradyumna Vyas mentioned, “Based on the enquiry report and findings, a show cause notice was issued to Krishnesh Mehta and as it is a repeat offense why his services should not be terminated. The reply given by KM was not satisfactory nor was showing any signs of remorse and therefore it was decided to terminate his services.
The termination notice with one month’s notice pay was being served on Shri Mehta when he expressed his regret, and apologized for putting the institute to such awkward situation and submitted his resignation with a request to relieve him from NID services with immediate effect.
Being a senior faculty member regretting his conduct and behavior and preferring to leave the services instead of being terminated, his request was considered and he was relieved from the services of NID with effect from the AN (sic) of 5.10.18.”
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NID had received complaints from students who had alleged that in his class, Mehta used to make unwanted references to sexuality and sexual behaviour. The institute established a five-member enquiry committee panel to look into the complaint. The panel consisted of three women, one man and an independent expert and was convened by Dr. Shilpa Das.
Pradyumna Vyas, the NID director told Indian Express, “The enquiry was immediately set up when we received complaints from students against Krishnesh Mehta using sexual flavours while teaching in the class. As the enquiry committee found him guilty, we decided to immediately terminate him but he apologised and submitted his resignation which was duly accepted.”
Reportedly, this had been the second time that such complaint was made by students against Mehta. Vyas said that while Mehta had been allowed to continue teaching, he had also been warned of consequences if such behaviour were to be repeated.
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Vyas stated, “Both the times there was no complaint of physical harassment or one to one harassment but exactly the similar nature that is using sexual flavours while teaching in the class amounting to sexual harassment. After he submitted a written apology, he was served a punishment of stoppage of one increment and was also issued a strong warning that any such conduct in future will be dealt with sternly. So, this time we decided to send a strong message even to the senior faculty of the institute that zero tolerance will be adopted against such nonsense actions.”
Multiple Incidents of predatory behaviour and sexual inappropriateness have been publicized over the last month across fields, from Bollywood to advertising to IT and even the media.