The 143rd Academic Council (AC) meeting of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Tuesday was adjourned after the discussion on the first point of the agenda — to confirm the minutes of the 142nd AC meeting — went on for over five hours.
While the university has claimed that the minutes of the 142nd meeting had been passed, teachers and students said that this was not the case.
‘Policy illegal’
Teachers and students present at the meeting said that since the minutes of the 142nd meeting — in which the admission policy based on the UGC Gazette Notification of May 5, 2016, was discussed — had not been confirmed, the current admission policy of JNU is illegal as it has not been passed by any decision-making body of the university.
“The Vice-Chancellor tried to pass the minutes of the 142nd meeting but when AC members said that the minutes have been forged and they need correction, he insisted that the meeting move ahead after registering the dissent. However, after much persuasion, the V-C opened the floor for discussion,” said JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Mohit Pandey.
Meeting recorded
He added that the majority of members were of the opinion that because the minutes of the 142nd meeting have larger implication on JNU’s admission policy, they must be corrected before the council can move ahead with any other agenda.
AC members said that after the discussion went on for over five hours, the V-C unilaterally adjourned the meeting.
In a first, the AC meeting was recorded and the V-C promised that the recordings would be made public and provided to the members.
The JNUSU has said that if the V-C claims that the minutes had been passed, JNU should immediately make the recorded proceedings public.
Ayesha Kidwai, the president of JNU Teachers’ Association, said only 13 members of the AC spoke in favour of the minutes being confirmed while the rest were against it.
‘Stand validated’
Satarupa Chakraborty, general secretary of JNUSU, said: “The V-C’s tactic of bulldozing his whims in the AC meeting has been defeated today”.
She added that the 143rd AC meeting yet again validated the position of JNUSU that the UGC Gazette Notification of May 5, 2016, has not been adopted or passed by any of the decision-making bodies in JNU.
“The JNU administration must, therefore, issue a corrigendum or fresh notification for M.Phil/Ph.D adhering to JNU’s existing admission policy,” said Ms. Chakraborty.
