Delhi HC issues notices to office-bearers of JNU students’ union for allegedly violating court order
The court said it had barred students from protesting within 100 metres of the varsity’s administration building.
The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notices to the office bearers of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union for allegedly violating a court ruling that bars them from protesting within 100 metres of the varsity’s administration building, ANI reported.
The university’s students on Thursday formed a human chain around the administration block and demanded that Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar talk to them about the administration’s decision to make attendance compulsory, The Hindu reported. The protests continued on Friday.
The court issued an interim direction, barring the students from restraining the entry of the vice chancellor, the pro vice chancellor, the registrar and staff into the administration building. The court said the administration can take the help of the Delhi Police if any “extreme situation occurs”. The High Court sought a reply from the JNUSU by February 20.
Delhi High Court issues notice to office bearers of JNUSU on a plea seeking contempt action against students for violating a court ruling which restrain them to protest within 100 m of admin block of university. Court sought reply till 20th February.
— ANI (@ANI) February 16, 2018
Despite high court order not to hold any protests near JNU admin building, not only there is a huge gathering since morning, JNUSU led students have even confined the top officials of JNU within admin building since 11 AM. Please read the HC order below. pic.twitter.com/klNMXsA5hD
— M. Jagadesh Kumar (@mamidala90) February 15, 2018
On Thursday, Kumar said that due to the efforts of a few professors, doctors and guards, one of the rectors confined in the building, whose blood pressure had shot up, was taken to the hospital for treatment. “Treating one’s own teachers like this?” he tweeted.
On Friday a group of students were seen performing skits and mimes, and singing songs near the main entrance of the administration block, PTI reported.
It is but for some JNU professors, doctors and guards, both the rectors, who have been confined in JNU admin building by the JNUSU led agitating students, could not have been shifted to hospital for emergency medical treatment. Treating one's own teachers like this?
— M. Jagadesh Kumar (@mamidala90) February 15, 2018
The administration had fined four office-bearers of the students’ union Rs 10,000 each on Tuesday for protesting against the compulsory attendance rule.
The university management had issued a circular in December 2017, saying it was planning to make 75% attendance for all courses compulsory and was forming a panel to frame the guidelines. Students and teachers had then called it an “unnecessary and arbitrary” move.
In an article for Scroll.in, Kavita Singh, the dean of the university’s School of Arts and Aesthetics, argued that the protests were primarily against months of mismanagement and worse by the university administration. “The attendance rules must first and foremost be opposed because of the way the administration has imposed them through falsification of the minutes of meetings that took place and the invention of meetings that did not even occur,” she wrote.
