Ten years after three students at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) accused two professors of sexual harassment, the survivors have now been served fresh legal notices. The professors — Shyamal Sengupta and Subhadro Choudhury — have challenged the Internal Committee's findings that led to their compulsory retirement, filing a case before the Central Administrative Tribunal.
The Internal Complaints Committee (IC), in 2015, had found the two professors guilty and the Governing Council (GC) of the SRFTI had asked them to go on compulsory retirement.
Last year, the Calcutta High Court ruled in a plea by Shyamal and Subhadro that the GC of the SRFTI revisit the decision of their compulsory retirement after hearing all the parties. The GC, after examining all the relevant documents and the responses of the stakeholders, upheld its earlier decision. It was after this that the accused professors approached the Tribunal.
They want every action, from the initial suspension, to the IC enquiry report, to the GC decision asking for compulsory retirement to be quashed. They have also asked to be reinstated and paid the arrears they had not been paid for the last 10 years.
Shyamal Sengupta and Subhadro Choudhury each have several years of experience and immense clout among the students (former and present), other faculty members, and industry professionals with whom they have collaborated before. Subhadro Chowdhury is known for his Bengali feature film Prohor (2002) with Debashree Roy and Clerk with Prosenjith Chatterji.
Shymal wrote screenplays for Bengali filmmaker Anniruddha Roy Chowdhury who later made the Hindi film Pink. He had served as Dean of SRFTI.
One of the female survivors who received the Tribunal’s legal notice said that she and others had been subjected to various forms of humiliation and harassment since the time they made their complaints. They are struggling filmmakers and hoping to move on with their lives, she said.
Now, again, they have been asked to appear before the Tribunal. The survivor says they don't have lawyers to represent them and none of them are in Kolkata anymore. "We can't afford lawyers. The institute doesn't provide us lawyers and the ones they provide don't argue on our behalf (from past experiences). We won the case in the High Court only because an NGO in Calcutta provided a lawyer for us pro bono. They can't help us anymore."
The new notice served on them to rake up the old issues would pull them back to the vicious circle again, the survivor lamented. The harassment she had faced back in SRFTI, allegedly from other students and faculty members who were supportive of the accused professors, had driven her to take extreme measures, including an attempted suicide.
Exhaustion, loss of trust
She explained further that the survivors are never informed of any case developments or provided legal representation. “When lawyers are appointed, they do not argue on our behalf. We are all struggling filmmakers and cannot afford high-profile lawyers. Frankly, we are exhausted by this unending saga of injustice."
Last November, students of SRFTI observed a protest on the campus, gheraoing the director, after the sudden resignation of Professor Putul Mahmood. She was a former member of the IC during whose tenure the two professors were found guilty.
The students sought an explanation, since the resignation happened at a time when another case of sexual harassment was being investigated by the IC. It seemed like a warning to the members of the IC who were involved in the investigation, they alleged.
New case, endless delay
In May 2024, a former student and faculty member approached the IC with a case of sexual harassment against a senior official of the institute. However, even after the IC submitted its preliminary report, the delay in initiating the second stage of the enquiry prompted the survivor to speak out through the online forum Women Against Sexual Harassment.
Chairperson of the institute, actor and BJP Minister of State Suresh Gopi, signed the chargesheet only after she made the post.
The case had reached the High Court last year when the accused official approached it to contest the findings of the IC. The court, while saying it would not interfere in the IC report, asked SRFTI not to take any coercive measures against the accused official based on the preliminary report. The court also ordered the institute to finish the final enquiry within six months.