The Madras High Court on Tuesday agreed to remove a contentious paragraph from one of its judgments since it was related to accusations faced by Christian missionaries of indulging in forcible religious conversions and supposed “general feeling” among parents, especially of girl children, that co-educational Christian institutions were highly unsafe for the future of their children.
Justice S. Vaidyanathan agreed to delete the relevant paragraph from his verdict in a case filed by a Madras Christian College (MCC) professor accused of sexually harassing girls during a study tour to Karnataka in January this year. The decision to delete was taken after the MCC counsel made a representation in open court on Tuesday and urged the court to remove the observations.
Since the judge had dismissed the writ petition filed by the faculty challenging a show cause notice issued to him by the college management, the counsel said the subsequent observations added by the judge after dismissing the case were unnecessary and that they may not remain part of the judgment. The judge readily accepted the request.
He, however, retained other observations wherein he had said that several women-centric enactments had been misused to teach a lesson to men in strained relationships.