The interim order of the Kerala High Court banning campus politics has found resonance at the University of Kerala with the Senate calling for steps to protect student activism in educational institutions.
The meeting of the Senate, which was held on Saturday, unanimously passed a special resolution that recommended the State government to go in for legislation to safeguard the democratic rights of students and permit campus politics. However, the statutory body refrained from deliberating upon the issue that was under the consideration of the court.
Elected:
Prathin Saj Krishna, central committee member and district secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI), was elected to the Syndicate from the 10-member student constituency of the Senate. Mr. Krishna, a second-year LLB student at the Kerala Law Academy Law College, secured 48 votes as he defeated his competitor M.S. Gokul of the Kerala Students Union (KSU), who manage to garner 22 votes. Four votes were declared invalid.
Among the major decisions that were adopted at the meeting, the Senate decided to entrust the standing counsel with studying the feasibility of approaching the Supreme Court to appeal against the judgment issued by the Kerala High Court to grant affiliation to self-financing colleges.
The decision in this regard was adopted after the provisional affiliation that had been granted to the Saraswathi College of Arts and Science, Vilappil, had come up for discussion. Members of the Senate claimed that the provisional affiliation had been provided without referring the application to the syndicate affiliation sub-committee of the varsity and despite the government having adopted a policy that stood against granting approvals for any more self-financing colleges. The university had received requests for affiliation from as many as 21 arts and science institutions since 2016, sources said.
Demand for spot allotments:
Moving an adjournment motion, research scholar S. Najeeb brought to the notice of the Senate the “inordinate delay” in filling around 400 seats to postgraduate courses in affiliated colleges and study centres of the varsity which remained vacant after the admission process. He also called for holding spot allotments to fill the seats in a time-bound manner.
The Senate also resolved to drop the proposed move to hike the fees for revaluation and scrutiny of answer sheets of examinations of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. It had been earlier proposed by the Syndicate on multiple instances in the past to raise the fees for applying for revaluation from ₹200 to ₹500 and for scrutiny from ₹75 to ₹150. The syndicate sub-committee on finance has been instructed to review the matter. (EOM)
