Reacting to a writ plea filed before the Delhi High Court by five Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students challenging changes to university admission policy, the JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) said the entire community was extremely encouraged by the outcome of the first hearing.
‘Open to dialogue’
“Although we shall have to wait for the reply that JNU files, the university’s sincerity [admittedly, somewhat belated] vis-à-vis the statements made by the Registrar in court on Monday, the JNUTA’s doors for dialogue with the V-C and his team are wide open. We hope that the hearing would’ve kindled an impulse towards self-reform in the JNU administration,” stated a JNUTA statement.
JNU Students’ Union president Mohit Pandey said, “It’s important to know who invited this situation in JNU and jeopardised the lives of students. Interestingly, the UGC Notification was notified in July 2016 and was supposed to be implemented in every varsity. From July to December, there was ample time for discussion on the draconian clauses of this gazette, but the administration kept us in the dark.”
He said the issue was never placed for discussion at the Academic Council (AC) meeting in October or before the Standing Committee. Despite knowing about faculty crunch, JNU didn’t started the recruitment process immediately. He added that it was brought to their notice at the AC meeting on December 23, and that too during vacations.
‘Serious implications’
“We were amazed to see the non-seriousness with which JNU worked around this notification, despite knowing that it could have serious implications on our admission policy. All forums for discussions were scuttled and the admission process has already been delayed. We want to ask why the V-C-led administration misinformed us?” a JNUSU statement said.
“From the existing batch to newcomers, everybody’s future is in jeopardy due to the carelessness of the administration. However, the question remains — will the admission work for the welfare of the community or will it still push the agenda of seat cut, fellowship cut and reservation cut.”
