The Delhi High Court ruled on Wednesday that all students at Delhi University (DU) have the right to join their student unions, allowing the students of three minority colleges to vote in opposition to the colleges’ ruling.
Earlier, authorities at Sri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa college, Shri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College and Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce decided to “disassociate” from the DUSU elections.
Taking a dim view over the decision, a bench of justice Prateek Jalan said, “Any college which is admitted to the privileges of the university, students are entitled to being a part of the students’ union. What appears is that your students want to be a part of DUSU, you don’t want to be a part of DUSU. Within the university all members have the right to be a part of DUSU. If we allow the universities to decide that students cannot be a part of DUSU or teachers can’t be a part of Delhi University Teacher’s Association (DUTA), then are we not curtailing the rights of students and teachers? Can it (decision) be done once the election process has started? Can you (colleges) certainly disentitle your students?” court said to the lawyer who appeared for the minority institutions.”
The bench added, “All the candidates of Respondent of 2,3 and 4 (Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa college, Shri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College and Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce) will be permitted to participate in the impending elections pursuant to the nomination and students will also be permitted to participaton September 20, the court had passed an interim order directing the minority college to permit the petitioners and other interested students to submit their nomination forms for DUSU elections and allow them to participate in the further election process.
On Wednesday, DU, represented by advocate Monika Arora, submitted said that the colleges’ decision was contrary to DUSU’s constitution. She went on to add that the students of these three colleges have been members of the union, and that the concerned colleges had even collected subscription fees for DUSU elections from the students, including the ones who got admission in academic year 2024-25.
While the counsel for the colleges submitted that it had communicated its decision to DU’s registrar as per the direction of its parent body, Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, and it could choose to withdraw (from the elections) in exercise of its fundamental right to establish and administer educational institutions of its own choice. The counsel, however, said that he had no information regarding the said colleges taking the collection fees from the students’ in the election process, subject to any further order passed by the court.”
The court granted the relief while responding to a plea filed by two students of the colleges, seeking to quash their September 6 decision to dissociate from the polls. Terming the decision as a deprivation of their democratic right, the students claimed that the colleges had unilaterally opted out of the polls without any consultation or justification.
Considering the contention, the court directed the counsel for the college to file an affidavit to the effect and fixed December 3 as the next date of hearing.
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Source: HT
