HC notice to JNU on students’ plea on UGC notification

New Delhi, April 17 (IANS) The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on a appeal against a single judge order dismissing some students' plea against the procedure followed by the varsity to implement a UGC notification that a professor cannot guide more than three M.Phil and eight Ph.D research scholars at any given time.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra sought the response from JNU before April 28, the next date of hearing.

Students filed an appeal against March 16 order of Justice V.K. Rao who had refused to grant any relief to JNU students, saying the University Grants Commission's regulations are "applicable and binding" on the university.

The single judge's order came on plea of JNU students who contended that the UGC notification dated May 5, 2016, "threatens to put our future in jeopardy" as they would not be able to find research supervisors/guides due to the said notification".

The JNU authorities had told the court that the notification was "binding" on the varsity and 43 central universities were already abiding by it.

The varsity had said it will neither receive grants nor could award degrees if it stopped following the UGC regulations.

The notification was adopted by the university during its 142nd Academic Council meeting on December 26, 2016, amid protests from several council members.

The students had argued that the notification's ramifications will extend beyond existing researchers and lead to few admissions of research aspirants in the current academic session.

Both existing and prospective students, who moved the Delhi High Court, had agreed to undertake that they were not challenging the UGC notification but restricting their case to "procedural lapses" on the JNU's part in adopting the notification.

The students had said the JNU did not include their representative in the meetings held to discuss the notification's implementation.

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