RMLNLU students on protest over alleged sexual harassment, administrative inefficiency

Students of Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University (RMLNLU), Lucknow are protesting the state of affairs at the University.

The students have been up in arms over the administration’s arbitrary policies and inaction in a number of matters for some time now. And the straw that broke the camel’s back was the recent incidents of alleged sexual harassment by two administrative officials.

On conducting a random inspection on campus, one of the officials allegedly took videos of male and female students. Another official allegedly threatened a female student that he had a photograph of her in a compromising position. A petition alleging sexual harassment has been signed by 100 female students of the University.

The Chief Proctor of the University has referred the matter to Vice-Chancellor Prof Gurdip Singh, who in turn has passed an order referring it to the University’s Sexual Harassment Complaints Committee.

However, students are understood to be unsatisfied with the action taken; they are demanding the ouster of four top officials: Prof Singh, the Registrar, the Deputy Registrar and the Joint Registrar. The reason for the same is that the administration has turned a blind eye to other problems faced by the students over the last year and a half.

Sources reveal that the standards of the University have dropped in various aspects. Students are protesting the lack of adequate faculty; lack of funds for student committees, welfare and placements; changing the mode of attendance to an electronic tab system without due notice, penalising students for interning mid-semester to secure jobs, among other issues.

Prof Gurdip Singh, on his part, allegedly claimed that he was not the authority to redress these grievances. The power setup at RMLNLU, where the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and not the Vice-Chancellor is the head of the General Council, might have something to do with that. Prof Singh was unavailable for comment at the time of publishing this story.

For now, classes  at the University have been suspended indefinitely. The students have made a representation to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath seeking his interference in the matter.

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