Dyal Singh College lecturers protest merger, asked to apologise

Seven lecturers of Dyal Singh College (Morning) were on Thursday asked to apologise for allegedly protesting against the operation of the Evening college during morning hours.

"You are required to sign an apology letter to be drafted by the Chairman Governing Body in matter of your conduct on July 20," read the letter sent by Principal I.S. Bakshi of Dyal Singh (Morning) College to the teachers.

"Furthermore, the Chairman Governing Body has desired that you can meet him in person, if you wish so. Failing which.... contempt of court proceedings may be initiated against you," it read.

Dyal Singh (Evening) College was given a nod by the Delhi University (DU) Executive Council (EC) last month to be converted into a morning college. After the decision, the evening adjunct began morning classes for the first year students from July 20, till the time it is able to operate as a full-fledged morning college.

However, a few students and teachers from the original morning college on the same day decided to meet Amitabh Sinha, who is Chairman for both the colleges, to complain against the space crunch which the 'merger' had occasioned.

"We met him to discuss the issue and told them that, though, the idea is good, the two colleges cannot function till there is enough space is available," Parmendra Kumar Parihar, one of the faculty members who has been asked to apologise, told IANS.

"There was no protest and the Chairman had then assured us that the 'conversion' will not take place until a decision is reached at the DU.... But now after 20 days of that meeting he is asking us to apologise," he said.

The contempt of court clause has its origin in a 2008 Delhi High Court order, Parihar said, which had prohibited the teachers and other workers of the college from staging any demonstration in or around 100 metres of the campus, as a result of their protest against Delhi Metro operations near their building.

Another DU Academic Council member, termed the principal's letter "dictatorial" saying that the morning classes by the evening college are "illegal", since the required amendments are yet to be made.

"That the evening college will become a morning one was approved by the Executive Council only 'in principle'. The amendments are yet to be made in the University of Delhi Act, which will then have to be approved by the Visitor of the University... protest is everyone's right and the wording of the letter is downright dictatorial," Pankaj Garg, an AC member and teacher at Rajdhani College, told IANS.

He cited a number of steps -- survey of the campus by the University engineer, bifurcation of resources between the two colleges etc -- to be executed before the college can technically be converted into a morning college.

Currently, the colleges are sharing a campus space of eight acres.

--IANS

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