– Mita Mukherjee

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the state higher education department to ask all universities and colleges to shut down their student union office rooms till further order.

Hearing a petition on pending student body elections in state-aided colleges and universities, a division bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Smita Das De issued the order instructing that the union rooms can be opened in urgent need, in case of special occasion or for the purpose of academic activities. In case of universities, permission of the university registrar will be required and for colleges, the principal’s permission will be required to open the union room.

The court passed the order while hearing a public litigation (PIL) petition filed by lawyer Sayan Banerjee seeking immediate student union elections.

The order comes a week after the incident of alleged gang-rape of a 24-year old student inside state-aided South Calcutta Law College on June 25.  The woman was raped partially inside the student union room and later in the room of the college security guard.

During the hearing, the petitioner highlighted the incident of the alleged gang-rape.

The plea said Monojit Mishra (31) the main accused in the alleged gang-rape at South Kolkata Law College had been obtaining access to the union room in the name of student union activities.

Even though student body polls have not been held in the state in most institutions since 2013, the union offices continue to operate with unlawful entry of former students. In most institutions, the former students — office bearers, class representatives and those nominated at the time of the last election continue to enter the campuses and use the union rooms  by virtue of their previous posts.

Hearing another PIL, the Calcutta High Court today asked the state government to explain the steps taken by it in investigation into the alleged gang-rape at South Calcutta Law College.

The court today also asked the state government to file an affidavit on the pending student elections.

A source in the education department said, student body polls in most colleges and universities throughout Bengal are due since 2013, when a police officer on duty outside Harimohan Ghosh College in Garden Reach area in south Kolkata was gunned down during a turf war between two rival student groups.

In June 2017, the Bengal government issued a notification stating that the student elections would be held under the West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Composition, Functions and Procedure for Election of Studen’s Council) Rules, 2017. But other than the  unitary universities like Presidency University, Rabindra Bharati University and Jadavpur University student polls were not conducted anywhere in the state.

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