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In a landmark decision, the Office of the Federal
Ombudsperson for Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace has
removed a sitting Vice Chancellor after finding him guilty of sexual
harassment, abuse of authority, and quid pro quo misconduct under the
Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010.
The Federal Ombudsperson held that Dr. Shehzad Ali Khan,
Vice Chancellor of the Health Services Academy, misused his dominant
institutional position to develop and sustain an inappropriate relationship
with his student, who later became his junior colleague, and granted her extraordinary
access and professional privileges without lawful authority.
Rejecting the defence of “consent” and allegations of
“honey-trapping,” the Ombudsperson ruled that consent has no legal value where
a clear power imbalance exists, particularly in teacher-student and
senior-junior relationships. The order found that intimate communication
initiated from the Vice Chancellor’s own phone, undue appointments, and
unchecked proximity constituted clear evidence of quid pro quo harassment.
All allegations of financial misappropriation levelled
against the student were dismissed for lack of evidence, with the authority
observing that no contemporaneous complaints or recovery proceedings were
initiated prior to the dispute.
Concluding that the misconduct was proved beyond doubt and
posed a serious risk of repetition, the Federal Ombudsperson dismissed the Vice
Chancellor’s complaint, upheld the harassment complaint against him, and
ordered his removal from service under Sections 4(ii)(c) and 4(ii)(e) of the
Act, reinforcing the principle that no public office is above accountability.
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