More than 100 students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi defied a ban on the screening of a documentary on beef-eating on their premises on Sunday evening. Two days after the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting refused to clear the 21-minute film, titled Beef on the Menu Card, for a documentary festival, the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association of the JNU said they were denied permission by the university authorities from organising a screening on their hostel lawns.

Manikanta Bahujan, a member of BAPSA, said that the warden of the Sabarmati Hostel withdrew permission hours before the scheduled screening on Sunday evening. Bahujan claimed that the warden acted on "political pressure from outside". The warden, Dev Shankar Naveen, denied there was any pressure on him and said the issue was the students were organising the screening in an area that was outside his jurisdiction. He said, "I was not influenced by any political party. I was only concerned about the jurisdiction. I have no problem with the screening personally or authoritatively. I asked the students to seek permission from the Dean's office to screen the film on the lawns, but they refused."

Bahujan refuted the claims, saying the authorities earlier did not have any issue with the organisation of cultural activities on the lawns. He said, "Nobody takes permission to screen films from the dean's office or the warden. You just need the signature of the hostel president. Only this morning, they told us that students aren't allowed to screen films in public spaces. Being Sunday, we could not approach the Dean. But we will be going ahead with the screening. We expect the authorities will try and stop the screening, but many student organisations are involved and we have a large number."