Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys, along with 17 faculty and administrative members of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), has been booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The FIR was filed at Sadashivanagar police station in Bengaluru following a private complaint by D Sanna Durgappa, a former assistant professor at the institute.
Durgappa, who previously served in IISc’s Department of Sustainable Technologies, accused the institution of caste-based discrimination. He alleged that his employment was terminated and that false sexual harassment charges were leveled against him after he applied for research funding.
The complainant, a PhD holder in zoology, joined IISc as a lecturer on July 10, 2008, and was promoted to assistant professor in 2011. According to Durgappa, he was denied a separate workspace and laboratory, prompting him to seek funding under the Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan. Following this, he claimed to have faced targeted harassment and filed a caste discrimination complaint on October 25, 2011, through the SC/ST Faculty and Officers Association, addressing it to then-director Govindan Rangarajan.
Durgappa further alleged that IISc orchestrated a “honey trap” against him and that the sexual harassment investigation was biased and unfair. He cited findings from a Karnataka Legislative Assembly Committee in May 2017, which reportedly found no evidence of sexual misconduct and concluded that he was targeted because of his Dalit identity. The committee had recommended his reinstatement, but Durgappa claimed the institute failed to follow through on this assurance.
The FIR lists Gopalakrishnan, who was a member of IISc’s governing council at the time, along with former IISc director Balaram P and faculty members Sridhar Warrier, Anil Kumar, Namrata Gundaih, Nirmala, Sandya Vishwanath, Dipshika Chakravarthy, Hari KVS, Dasappa, Govindan Rangarajan, Balachandra P, Hemala Mhishi, Anjali Karande, Chattopadhyaya K, Pradeep Sawkar, Abhilash Raju, and Manoharan. The accused face charges under Sections 3(8), 3(14), 3(1)(2), and 3(x) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
