70 barred from exams at IP varsity

Students call it vindictive act meant to teach a lesson to dissenters

Over 100 students of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University protested in front of vice chancellor’s office on Friday against being held backin their semester for shortage of attendance.

Around 70 students from school of law and legal studies were detained on Thursday.

A teachers’ association member said on Wednesday after a dean’s son misbehaved with a faculty member, an individual complaint was filed and was followed by written complaints by all 13 faculty members of the school over discrepancies in educational and financial matters.

“Students have never been detained in such high numbers in this school. Till last year four to five students used to be detained due to shortage of attendance,” said a protesting student.

The student said according to University guidelines a monthly attendance list should be displayed which never happened. But the list of detained students came out a few days before the exams, the student added. They feel that the ‘sudden’ detaining might be linked to several students accompanying faculty members on Wednesday to lodge complain against the dean.

The PRO could not be contacted despite repeated attempts. On December 5, the varsity had sent a statement deciding to detain 524 students from various schools.

 “University’s academic council has prescribed that the students should pass in at least 50 per cent of papers in the first year and earn 90 per cent credits in the second year to be promoted to third and fourth year. Thus, they get two chances within first and second year to clear the papers pertaining to the first year,” the statement said and added that a third chance was also given to 2,200 students of which 524 could not pass.

“It was unanimously felt that these 524 students have not been able to rise to the minimum standards required for promotion,” the statement said. The protesters also alleged that the name of a high court judge’s son was in the detainee list “which was corrected later calling it an administrative mistake,” said another student. There is no response from the administration yet, the students said.

“We are hearing that the officials will meet the faculty members of the law school on the next working day. We also heard that the dean met VC recently at his residence after which the detainee list came out,” said a student.