'Handful of students' running misinformation campaign: JNU

With students protesting against the JNU administration accusing it of various charges, including one of corruption, the university said a "misinformation campaign" is being run by a "handful of students".

In a communique addressed to the student community, which was issued in late Tuesday evening, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) administration listed a number of reasons in its attempt to discredit the students' complaints as unfounded.

A protest meeting was held on Tuesday at the Administrative Block of the university by the JNU Students' Union (JNUSU) against the refusal of registration to its President Mohit Pandey in the current semester for not paying fines amounting to between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000.

The JNUSU during the meet also raised issues of seat-cut and said it would soon expose a corruption on the part of the administration.

On its part, the university said that Pandey refused to pay fines "imposed on him after the recommendation of the Proctorial Inquiry Committee" and that he could have cleared his dues like other office-bearers, who too were subjected to like punishment.

It gave the same rationale in case of another protesting student Dileep Yadav, who too has been barred from registeration.

The administration said that Yadav was ordered to pay his fines by the Delhi High Court, which he had approached after being subjected to the punitive measure by the Proctorial Inquiry Committee.

The university also rebutted what it called a "misinformation campaign ... in the social media", saying that the students were not punished for protesting against missing student Najeeb Ahmed, as was being claimed by them.

"The fact is that their protests were not peaceful and that some of them had been fined due to illegally confining the administrative officials, including the Vice Chancellor, for more than 20 hours in the administrative building," the note published in the university's website read.

The issue of seat reductions in the M.Phil. and Ph.D courses, which has been protested against by the students for the most part of the year, also found mention in the note.

"It is being propagated that the JNU administration had cut the number of seats by illegally imposing a 2016 University Grants Commission (UGC) Gazette Notification.

"The fact remains that this regulation is mandatory on all the universities and JNU administration has not violated any law by adopting and implementing this regulation," it said.

--IANS

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