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Chennai: A local court in Tamil Nadu's Virudhunagar district on Tuesday sentenced Nirmala Devi, the suspended assistant professor of a government-aided college who was accused of luring four girl students of Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) to offer “sexual favours” for a top official, to ten years in prison.
T T Bagavathiammal, the judge of the Fast Track Mahila Court in Srivilliputtur, pronounced the sentencing on Tuesday, a day after Nirmala was convicted under four sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and other relevant acts on charges of attempting to traffic the four girls.
While handing out separate sentencing for each section, the judge also imposed a fine of Rs 2.45 lakh on the suspended professor, who was arrested on April 16, 2018.
The judge had on Monday acquitted two other accused - V Murugan, assistant professor of the MKU, and S Karuppasamy, a former research scholar at MKU.
The suspended professor was charged under Sections 370 (1) and (3) for bid to traffic people, 120 (B) criminal conspiracy of the IPC.
The case sent shockwaves across the state in April 2018 after Nirmala, who was working at the Devanga Arts and Science College in Aruppukottai, mentioned during a phone conversation with the students that she was seeking the favour for a “Governor-level” official.
After she almost dragged the Raj Bhavan into the issue, the then Governor Banwarilal Purohit called for a rare press conference to dismiss the allegations and plead that he “never saw the face” of the accused professor.
Nirmala was arrested on April 16, 2018, a day after an audio clip of her luring the girl students to offer “sexual favours” went viral on social media.
In the audio clip, Nirmala was heard asking the students to “grab the opportunity to do certain things secretly for a top official”.
The students were clearly “disinterested” in the “proposal”, due to which the professor sounded unperturbed and continued to convince them by flaunting her connections.
Though Nirmala was suspended from her post in the third week of March after the students filed a complaint with the college administration, there was no further action against her until the audio clip was shared on April 15, 2018.
Nirmala’s arrest and her dropping the name of the Governor led to a major controversy with Purohit appointing a one-man commission headed by retired bureaucrat R Santhanam to probe into the issue.
At a press conference on April 17, Purohit tried hard to explain that he had nothing to do with the conversation between the professor and the girl students.
“I have not seen her (Nirmala) face till today. Nobody on this earth can level such allegations against me. I am a 78-year-old and am blessed to have my great grandchildren. It is nonsense, baseless and needless. Please remember that the Governor is above politics,” Purohit said.