Student body election can be held as experiment: Jamia to HC

Jamia Milia Islamia today told the Delhi High Court that as an experiment, a fresh attempt can be made for holding election to the students union, which was dissolved six years ago.

Filing its reply on a plea seeking a direction to university to hold election for students union, Jamia told the
court that its Executive Council has 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 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,” the affidavit filed before the bench of justices S K Kaul and Vipin Sanghi said.

Claiming that after deliberating several models of electing student representatives and also the alternative
methods for the fresh elected body for students, the affidavit said the committee has 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(JSU) and also set out a model code of conduct to implement the proposed structure,” the affidavit said.

The bench asked Advocate Sitab Ali Chaudhary, the counsel for petitioner Hamidur Rehman, a final year BA student, to respond to Jamia’s affidavit by November 5.

The court was hearing a petition alleging that Jamia was not conducting students’ union election since 2006 on the ground that the atmosphere is not conducive despite several representations made in this regard before the administration.