Written by: hamarijamatia
2 min readNew DelhiDec 12, 2008 12:00 AM IST
First published on: Dec 12, 2008 at 12:39 AM IST
The Joint Struggle Committee of Jawaharlal Nehru University has submitted an application before the Supreme Court, seeking review of the clauses of the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines that govern student body elections in India.
Committee members said some of the guidelines are difficult to implement in a university like Jawaharlal Nehru University and need to be relaxed.
The Supreme Court had stayed student elections in JNU this year because they were not complying with the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines.
“Issues such as age limit and attendance are not possible to implement in JNU because attendance is not maintained here. The plea for review contains all such information,” Roshan Kishore, an SFI leader, said.
Sandeep Singh, president of the JNU Students’ Union, said the application was filed on Monday when the Supreme Court had a hearing with the student committee set up to look into the stay on the elections.
The Supreme Court had issued a statement saying, “We will see that educational institutions should not become political battlefields. Our aim is to see that there should not be a free flow of money and muscle power”, leaving some students dissatisfied.
Bharat Kumar, an NSUI leader, said that if students are kept away from active politics, it would mean that an ordinary student will never make a career in politics. “College elections provide a platform for students to gain attention. If active politics is removed, only the relatives of politicians will be able to become politicians,” he said.
Radhika Krishnan, a student who was contesting the elections before they were stayed by the court, said politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University has always been progressive rather than being dominated by money and muscle power.
“Politics is here to stay and if students do not talk about it, who will?” she asked.
All eyes are now on the Supreme Court, which has set the date for the next hearing in April. “The application will be up for review by the first week of February. Only then will we have anything concrete on the issue,” Sandeep said.
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