This collective of lawyers and law students is standing up for students’ rights

In the fight between students and college administration, the arena is more often than not skewed in favour of the administration. In addition to the power exercised within the college, the management is generally able to afford strong legal representation with relative ease.

Proactive law students based in Kerala have started an initiative to provide legal assistance to students facing such challenges. The endeavor, captioned Your Lawyer Friend (YLF), set up its Facebook page and its website on February 6 this year.

The group functions out of three focal districts, namely, Ernakulam, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram. Anisha VR, second year student at National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS), has been designated as the team leader for the Kochi chapter. Raniyal Niyada is in charge of the Kozhikode unit, whereas Jojimon J leads the Thiruvananthapuram unit. Lettisha LS and Sreenath J, second year students at NUALS, head the research and PR teams respectively. The initiative is one among others started by Legal Collective for Student Rights (LCSR).

The immediate catalyst for the formation of LCSR was the alleged suicide of a student from the Nehru College of Engineering, Thrissur, Jishnu Pranoy. In the outrage that followed, students and parents pointed towards administrative tyranny prevalent in the college as the reason for his death. The movement gathered momentum rapidly, as more and more students across the state became increasingly vocal about similar unethical management practices in other colleges.

Speaking to Bar & Bench, Arjun PK, who heads the initiative and serves as de facto Executive Director, recounted,

“We had been in touch with several students from Nehru Engineering College as part of CHR [Centre for Human Rights, NUALS] activities before. But they did not have the courage to come forward. We felt that had he been able to get access to legal help back then, he wouldn’t have had to take the drastic step. Similar issues were coming out from various colleges and we recognised the need for a body capable of legal intervention in this area.”

The YLF initiative aims to spread awareness about student rights and facilitate the proper addressal of genuine grievances of students in similar situations.

“Students can reach out to us through the website or the Facebook page. We look into what the issue is and inform what legal alternatives are available to them. If it is an issue with scope for policy intervention, we ask them to file the matter in court and we provide free legal services to them.”

Apart from necessary court fee and clerical charges, the services rendered for this purpose are free of cost. To this end, the complainant can be put in touch with practicing lawyers and concerned local administrators. YLF is currently working with four lawyers practicing at the Kerala High Court. In addition, they are also guided by G Mohan Gopal (Director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies), and IAS officer N Prasanth. Shamnas MT, CEO of Bodhi Information Solutions, offers technical support, free of cost.

The collective has received over fifty queries since its inception. A substantial portion of complainants are students who are denied return of their educational certificates when they choose to drop out of college, citing non-payment of liquidated damages. Through YLF intervention, such complaints were referred to a state regulatory committee headed by retired Justice Rajendra Babu. As a result, the certificates held up by the college were released on orders passed by the committee.

Looking forward, there are plans to register the LCSR formally. Another initiative presently in the works is an effort to develop an independent ranking system so that greater emphasis is placed on factors such as the freethinking quotient, as opposed to the conventionally accepted National Institute Rank Framework. This is being done in conjunction with the youth wing of NGO, Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishath. The collective is also working on drafting policy recommendations highlighting student rights and aligned issues.