Delhi High Court Allows Rusticated JNU Students To Sit For Exams, Halts Coercive Action Till May 28

The Delhi High Court directed the Jawaharlal Nehru University to allow nine students rusticated on a sexual harassment complaint to write their exams from Wednesday.

Justice Vikas Mahajan instructed Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) not to take coercive actions to remove the students from their hostels until May 28, when the case would again be heard.

"Considering in view the prayer of the petitioners' counsel, more particularly on the ground that there is denial of principles of natural justice, the respondent university is hereby ordered to allow the petitioners to appear for their examination, until further date of hearing and no coercive action will be taken against them to leave their hostel," the court observed on May 13.

JNU placed independent orders on the students on May 5, rusticating them for two semesters and declared them out of bounds on the varsity campus from now on.

The students have approached the setting aside of university order and proceedings arising out of its orders.

Student union representative Advocate Kumar Piyush Pushkar said before the order, an investigation was initiated by the university but the petitioners were denied a chance to cross-examine witnesses.

The JNU order was untenable as it was passed in defiance of the canons of natural justice, he said.

The court issued notice to JNU on the petition and asked it to reply within a week.

The students' plea was that the exams would start from May 14 or within two days but the rustication order barred them from appearing for it.

The court made it clear through its interim order that the interim relief would not have any special equities in favor of the petitioners and its orders were conditional upon the outcome of the case.

Forty seven female students of Centre for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS) approached JNU's Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) with their complaint of sexual violence and sexual harassment on them on the evening of the CSSS freshers' party at the university convention center on 22 October 2024.

The petitioners complained that the vice-chancellor summoned them to her office on October 25, 2024 and without conducting an inquiry or forming a committee, illegally rusticated them for two semesters and banned them from the campus for one year.

The high court, however, suspended the October 25 order of the university restraining the authorities from evicting the petitioners from their hostel.

The petitioners further added that in April the petitioners were issued a showcause notice and the report of inquiry questioning why disciplinary action could not be initiated against them after which the petitioners' replies were placed before the chief proctor.

But, without being permitted to cross examine the witnesses, they were rusticated for two semesters for the second time and fined Rs 10,000 on May 5, the plea said.