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Fresh tension at JNU

Last Updated 19 February 2017, 19:21 IST
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus is once again on the boil with the Delhi Police lodging an FIR against its students for “illegally occupying” the varsity’s administrative building.

The students have been sitting in a mass protest outside the administrative block and not letting any of the staff enter the building since February 9, demanding that the university revoke the recent changes made in its admission rules for research programmes.

Fourteen students have been charged with obstructing a public servant in discharge of duty, assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging duty, voluntarily causing hurt, wrongful restraint and criminal intimidation under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

This came a day after the Delhi High Court sought to know from the JNU as to why it did not approach the court so far while the students had denied the staff and officials access to the varsity’s administrative building. The court was hearing a petition, filed by five students of the JNU, for directing the university to give their marksheets and certificates as they wanted to apply for some courses and jobs.

When the court sought to know as to why the documents were not being provided to the petitioners, the central government’s standing counsel Monika Arora, appearing on behalf of the JNU, told Justice V K Rao that police assistance was required to facilitate the entry of the officials to the administrative block in view of the ongoing protest.

The students have been staging a protest since the university adopted the May 2016 regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC) which set a limit of eight students per professor for admissions to MPhil and PhD programmes. This in effect will result in a massive cut in the seats and no new admissions to some of the MPhil and PhD programmes for the next few years as the university does not have adequate faculty.
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(Published 19 February 2017, 19:21 IST)

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