Friday (December 13): The Delhi High Court today described as “shocking” that the Jawaharlal Nehru University had no idea about the academic details of the students against whom it has filed a contempt petition for protesting within 100 metres of its administrative block.
Justice A K Chawla directed the university to file an affidavit giving details of the students named in the contempt petition, including their courses, its status and duration of stay in the campus.
The court listed the matter for hearing on next Friday.
“It is shocking you file a contempt and you don’t know anything about the students, one of whom was convicted for contempt last year also. You only know the room numbers (of the students),” the court said.
Court made the observation after the Registrar of JNU and other officials, present in the hearing, were unable to give details about one of the nine students – Geeta Kumari – who according to the varsity was last year held guilty of contempt by the high court for protesting near the administrative block.
“How long she has been studying there? Shouldn’t the Registrar know? Is that not a basic thing? Do you know which course she or others are studying? No? Why not,” the court said.
Arora told the court that in August 2017, the high court had directed that students will not hold protests within 100 meters of the administrative block and will not block access to it.
The high court had also directed the police to intervene and provide assistance if and when protesting students block access to the block, she said and added that since October 28 this year, despite repeated requests by JNU, the police did not come to its aid.
