Police stationed at MNLU CS as students protest late-night hostel checks

Police officers have been stationed at the Maharashtra National Law University, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (MNLU CS) since last night amid ongoing student protests against the administration.

The cops arrived on campus on Monday night and have been negotiating with the students to call off the protest, which started on August 4.

The immediate trigger for the protest was a late-night hostel check by the administration that they claim invaded their privacy.

Opposing this and other actions and omissions on the part of the administration, the students have laid down 21 demands in a formal complaint.

A key concern raised by students is that they don't have a say in how things work on campus.

"No mechanism whatsoever is provided for genuine student participation, representation, or oversight. The absence of student councils, elected bodies, or empowered grievance forums amounts to wholesale disenfranchisement of the student community and stands in direct conflict with the internationally accepted norms governing university autonomy and self-governance."

Among the other issues raised are faculty members holding administrative positions; arbitrary decision-making by the administration; inflexible academic schedules; lack of quality instruction; inadequate support for internships, moots and placements; invasive supervision; lack of hygiene in the mess; poor hostel conditions; lack of medical facilities, etc.

Following the protests, students said that the administration contacted their parents and threatened to suspend their wards.

In response to the protests, Vice-Chancellor Prof Bindu S Ronald told Bar & Bench,

"The protest has actually started because there are certain disciplinary concerns against a few of the students over here. Their demands are also actually subsequent to that. Faculty members have all the right to go into the hostel...when we have first-year students, we have to ensure that they are safe and there are no issues and problems...During this kind of a routine check-up, they found there were 3 students who were coming into the hostel at around 1:30AM. We have a lockup time of 10PM.

The concern for the faculty and the institution is also about the safety aspect...They don't want parents to be informed about anything. If at 1, 1:30 students are not coming (back to hostel) there is nothing wrong in faculty members calling their homes to find out the reason whether they know the students have gone out.

Here we have students who have not informed anything and then going out and then they are coming and giving vague things and if we can't ask the parents about it, that is not right. As an institution, the faculty and the management is concerned about the safety of the students, it cannot only be that the faculty is called when there is an accident or there is a problem that is there that they suffer."

Prof Ronald further said that the students concerned had previously faced disciplinary action, which led to their suspension from the hostel. However, upon their parents' request, they were allowed to join back.

"The moment they have come back, they are trying to garner the other students and get their support so that they can do whatever they want. This is not acceptable to the institution."

On the matter of faculty members having administrative and academic powers, she said,

"These are things students will say, but faculty members are more mature to see whether there is a reason, but more than that, they (students) don't want faculty members to be in any administrative capacity including being warden. But who else would know who are the students that are there...?"

Even as the police, and not the administration, are negotiating with students, the VC said,

"All this time, the students could always come to us and talk to us. There is nobody stopping them. What happened earlier I don't know...Many of the students over here have also come to me and spoken in the past about their issues and problems. Why is it that when they know that there is a disciplinary matter that can come against the students, all of them...are pulling the first-year students and bringing them (to protest)?"

[Read MNLU CS Student Demands]