After the Delhi High Court stayed its own order that upheld the new admission policy that Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) formed after adopting the UGC 2016 Gazette Notification, the JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) has asked the university administration to reopen the admission process.
The JNUSU said that many research students did not fill out the JNU admission form due to the massive intake-cut advertised in the e-prospectus. It added that the with the deprivation points system being removed for admission into research courses, many students from deprived backgrounds did not apply.
‘Issue new notification’
JNU had issued the admission notification for the academic year 2017-18 on March 23, 2017 on the lines of the May 2016 UGC notification, after the March 16 judgement by the High Court.
The adoption of the UGC notification reduced the number of available M.Phil and Ph.D seats from 970 to 102 as a cap was put on the number of students each research supervisor could guide.
The university has said that it will be only a transitional phase as the university will be filling up 300 faculty vacancies.
“The High Court has stayed the judgement on the interpretation of which the JNU administration proceeded with the admission notification, denying a chance to hundreds of students to even apply for JNU. The administration should change the admission notification until the final verdict is delivered,” said the students.
They demanded that the JNU administration immediately issue a corrigendum or a fresh notification for admissions in the M.Phil/Ph.D programmes.
Ordinances
Meanwhile, the JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) pointed out that the administration on Monday notified new M.Phil/Ph.D “ordinances” that implemented the UGC regulations. The JNUTA said that they had responded to the ordinances in a letter to Registrar Pramod Kumar calling them illegal as they had never been approved by the Academic Council.
“Ordinances were introduced as JNU administration is looking to source its discriminatory, anti-research admission policy through indexing AC and EC resolutions that have no force of law,” said the JNUTA.
