JNU Protest: Akhil Sibal, Gopal Sankaranarayanan appear for JNUSU office bearers in Delhi HC

In a case reminiscent of the Kanhaiya Kumar episode of 2015, the Delhi High Court is hearing a contempt of court case against four office bearers of the JNU Students Union (JNUSU)..The contempt petition has been filed by Jawaharlal Nehru University against JNUSU President Geeta Kumari, Vice President Simone Zoya Khan, General Secretary Duggirala Srikrisha and Joint Secretary Shubhanshu Singh..The matter came up for hearing today before Justice V Kameswar Rao who listed the matter for March 9, while also directing that the ingress and egress into the administrative block of the University should not be hindered by the protesting students..Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain and advocate Monika Arora appeared for JNU..Senior Advocates Akhil Sibal and advocates Gopal Sankaranarayanan, Abhik Chimni and Govind Manoharan appeared for the respondents..The contempt case is based on an order passed by the Delhi High Court on August 9 last year wherein it had, while allowing students the right to protest, directed that “no protest of any sort shall be undertaken by the students within 100 meters radius of the Administrative Block”..The Court had also directed that if its order was not complied with, JNU would be at liberty to request the police authorities for assistance to maintain law and order in the campus. However, the Court also recorded that police authorities shall act only on the evidence of obstruction to ingress/ egress to the Administrative Building, being provided by the Authorities, which may be in the form of CCTV footage..The trigger for the present contempt petition was a protest demonstration by JNU Students against the attendance policy and the indefinite postponement of meeting of Academic Council..The students had raised their objection to the new attendance policy put in place by JNU. JNU administration had initially agreed that it will consider their views in the Academic Council meeting and had scheduled the meeting for February 23..Subsequently, it was announced that the meeting has been postponed indefinitely triggering protests from students near the administrative building..This promoted JNU to file petition alleging that the students had violated the August 9 order..When the matter was taken up today, Senior Advocate Akhil Sibal, appearing for the respondents, submitted that the allegations by JNU are factually incorrect and that respondents will submit photo and video evidence to prove their case. Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who was also appearing for the respondents, told the court that the situation could be diffused by holding the Academic Council meeting on the scheduled date..Advocate Monika Arora, appearing for JNU, told the Court that the administration will meet JNU Teachers Union on Thursday this week and the JNUSU on Friday, to discuss the issues raised..Further, she also pointed out that the case was not about Academic Council meeting but about contempt of court for violation of August 9 order of the Court..Counsel for the respondents stated that as per the August 9 order, there is a mechanism to deal with alleged violation of order, which is to approach the police. It was their argument that JNU administration had approached the police twice but the police did not act since they could not produce any evidence..The Court after hearing the parties adjourned the matter to enable the respondents to file their counter. The matter will now be taken up on March 9..As an interim measure, the Court ordered that the students should not block the ingress/egress to the administrative building.