Jamia Millia open to students' union poll, court told

New Delhi, July 24 (IANS) The Jamia Millia Islamia Tuesday informed the Delhi High Court that an experimental attempt could be made for holding elections to the students' union which was banned six years ago.

Jamia filed an affidavit before the court on a plea seeking quashing of the 2006 decision of the central university to ban elections to the students' union.

"The committee was mindful of the fact that, despite the prevailing situation in the campus, considering that the Jamia Students' Union was dissolved six years ago, a renewed attempt should be made to provide a representative body to the students by way of an experiment," said the university through an affidavit filed before a division bench of Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice Vipin Sanghi.

The university also submitted that its executive council had accepted the recommendations of a six-member committee of academicians, constituted by the Vice-Chancellor (VC) pursuant to court's earlier order to look into the aspect.

The affidavit said that the committee also drafted rules and regulations for the students' union election.

"The committee drafted rules and regulations for putting in place a mechanism to elect the Jamia Students' Union and also set out a model code of conduct to implement the proposed structure," said the affidavit.

The court asked advocate Sitab Ali Chaudhary, appearing for petitioner Hamidur Rehman, a final year undergraduate student, to file the reply on Jamia's affidavit by Nov 5.

The court was hearing a plea seeking a direction to university to hold election to students' union, alleging that it was unreasonable on the part of the university to ban the union in March 2006.

"Union elections are no more being held, there is nobody in the campus to address the students' grievances and problems and that is why they are being harassed and tortured frequently," Rahman said in his petition.

He said that the polls had not been held since March 31, 2006 despite several representations and requests by students.

The university March 2006 dissolved the students' union without giving any reason, the petition said.

The petitioner alleged that despite the central government and the University Grants Commission asking Jamia to conduct the student union elections, no action had been taken.