Expulsion of DU Student without Due Process
18 November 2024 | Disha Students’ Organization
On 31.07.24, Jyoti, a masters student of Russian (Department of Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian studies) at the University of Delhi and a member of Disha Students' Organization, was harassed and intimidated by the Delhi Police for writing a slogan on a wall of the university's North Campus. At 1:00 am in the night, she was taken to the police station; the police took her college ID card and Aadhar card, and an FIR was registered against her. The very same Delhi Police, which finds itself helpless and mute when the goons of organizations like the ABVP force their entry into colleges like Miranda House, when they harass the students and teachers alike and make the campus into a nightmarish hellscape, suddenly found all the energy to stop this one student from exercising her basic democratic right as a student of this university.
The university too, usually asleep and unresponsive, suddenly jumped into action. On August 21st, without defining the terms and without citing any rule or without conducting an investigation, the Proctor of the Delhi University suspended Jyoti unjustly for having been caught "red-handed" writing “objectionable slogans." Jyoti and Disha Students' Organization challenged this dictum both by approaching the university administration (which refused to even hear her properly) and the Delhi High Court. While the court case is still ongoing, the University of Delhi, at the recommendation of a two-member “investigation committee," has expelled Jyoti for six months because: a) she was caught "red-handed" for writing “objectionable slogans”; b) the “investigation committee” is of the opinion that she feels neither guilty nor repentant for this; c) the university wants to make an example out of her—by expelling her, it wants to discourage the students from doing any such activities in the future. Now, what was this “objectionable” slogan that attracted the wrath of the Police and the university and which is curiously never once mentioned by the university? This slogan was “Scrap NTA," which expressed the dissatisfaction against the way in which the NTA has been playing with the lives and futures of the students and the youth of our country through irregularities and blunders in the many exams it conducts. The appalling nature and the ridiculousness of the university's arguments are almost incredible, as is the sheer hypocrisy—during the DUSU elections, the ABVP littered the entire campus and created such ruckus, but the university barely slapped them on the wrist.
While on the one hand, the ABVP and the RSS are allowed to block roads, conduct communal programs in the very university premises, and fill the roads and the walls of the university with garbage, on the other, no student is today allowed to exercise even her basic democratic right. As is happening across the board, the democratic space in this university is being actively curbed. Students, professors, teaching and non-teaching staff members, and conscientious citizens must, today, step forward to push back against this fatal assault.
Published as received by IAFN. IAFN is not responsible for verifying this statement.