Alleged casteist remarks: HC stays arrest of Kerala University prof

Kochi: High court has stayed the arrest of C N Vijayakumari, head of Sanskrit department and dean of faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Kerala, in connection with a criminal case in which she allegedly made casteist remarks against a research scholar.The bench of Justice V G Arun issued the interim order while considering a pre-arrest bail petition filed by Vijayakumari and sought instructions from the state govt before adjourning the matter to Nov 19 for further hearing. The complaint was filed by Vipin Vijayan, a research scholar and Students' Federation of India (SFI) functionary, who alleged that Vijayakumari had insulted him using casteist remarks and refused to approve his thesis. He further claimed that she had made similar remarks against him on multiple occasions since he joined the MPhil programme under her supervision in 2015. Acting on the complaint, the Sreekaryam police registered a case under the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015, following which the professor approached high court seeking anticipatory bail.Vijayakumari, meanwhile, denied the allegations and claimed that Vijayan had failed to answer questions during his open defence on Oct 15. She stated that his thesis contained several serious methodological, factual and conceptual errors. She further alleged that Vijayan, along with SFI activists, surrounded her, verbally abused and insulted her in the presence of others, and attempted to intimidate and coerce her into approving the thesis on the spot. She maintained that the complaint was fabricated and politically motivated, intended to pressure her into certifying an invalid thesis.