Senior faculty members of Jawaharlal Nehru University have pointed out “glaring inconsistencies” in the speech delivered by Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on February 24 in Parliament.

The members have alleged that in appointing the High Level Enquiry Committee (HLEC) to look into the Afzal Guru event organised on the campus and the alleged “anti-national” slogans raised on February 9, the university administration superseded the proctorial committee which, they claimed, is designated to enquire into any such incident as per the JNU statutes.

The senior faculty members also raised questions over the “arbitrary manner” in which eight students were suspended without investigating into the degree of wrong committed by each one of them. 

“This decision (of suspension) was arrived at in less than 24 hours of the formation of the committee. It did not fix any specific responsibility and based its claims on a video footage whose credibility is questionable. The order of academic suspension holds all students individually and equally responsible for ‘one or more of the offences,” a faculty member said.

“How were they identified? It does not specify the evidence against each of these students. It also fails to differentiate between minor violations (e.g. holding meeting after cancellation of permission) and creating a law and order problem. It does not even bother to differentiate between students in terms of charges specified against them,” added the member. The students were not even given a chance to be heard by the committee members, another faculty said.

Some senior professors also said that a member of the HLEC has admitted to the media that they do not have the full names of students whom they wish to invite to depose before the committee. “For instance, they have invited all 22 Anjalis on campus. Moreover, both the JNU security officer’s report (SOR) and the FIR on the February 9 incident state that there was some tension between two groups of students, but no law and order situation existed, contrary to what the committee says. Both the SOR and the FIR state that students returned to their hostel peacefully by 8.30 pm,” a professor said, adding that both the SOR and the FIR do not identify Kanhaiya Kumar shouting any of the objectionable slogans.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/article8294151.ece