The High Court’s order to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to hear the appeal of students against the punishments over the February 9 event “might or might not” produce a result in favour of the students.
In an exclusive interview with The Pioneer, JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar said the university will take the final call after calling all the 20 students, involved in the event “one by one” to present their appeals but it “does not mean that the appellate authority would have to change the decision.”
“The students have approached the High Court which has asked them to appeal the Vice Chancellor, who is the appellate authority. The appellate authority will take a final call after listening to their appeal. On basis of what the students would argue in their appeals and the evidence against them, is something that would be a deciding factor. It could be increasing, decreasing or keeping the status of punishments same,” Prof Kumar said.
The High level Enquiry Committee (HlEC), formed by the V-C had investigated the event which led to a massive outrage in and outside the campus. On basis of the recommendation of this committee, the students involved were given punishments, of which JNUSU Kanhaiya Kumar got a relief from the High Court while the court asked the university to hear the appeals of other students. Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya had approached High Court and filed petition against the punishments.
The V-C said the process will take some time until a final call would be taken. “All of us have to abide by the court’s verdict… There is a procedure which is followed in the university.... There are some 20 students and we will call each of them to present their appeal.”
On handling the event “Cultural Evening: The country without a post office” in commemoration of Parliament Attack convict Afzal Guru’s hanging, the V-C said he has “no regrets” and “it could not have been handled any better.”
“I have absolutely no regrets on how we have handled the issue. This could not have been handled any better since my decisions are always based on the collective advice of my colleagues,” he added.
Also, he said the arrest of students depressed him as a university administrator. “No, university administrator wants their law abiding students to be arrested. At the same time, we must remember that no one is above law and no one, who has committed a serious crime, can expect not to be arrested just because they are within the protected walls of a university.”
While saying that the “experience of meeting JNU community” was something he cherishes, he complained about encountering “frog in the well” attitude. “The fact that there are so many good ideas coming from the JNU community to take it to the next level makes me happy and confident that we can work together to transform JNU into a world class university… what makes me sad is when I encounter the frog in well attitude. It is not right to say since something has worked for years, we should not change. The most undesirable thing to do in a university is to maintain status quo,” he underlined.
