New Delhi: Deans of five schools of JNU on Tuesday wrote to Vice-Chancellor saying that contrary to the "message being conveyed" that they were apprised of the probe report of the Afzal Guru row, they had not been given any details of the charges made against students or the degree of punishment.
The deans have also sought a clarification from the VC, M Jagadesh Kumar, about why the Deans Committee was not informed of who all are being charged, what the charges are and what the recommended punishment in each case is.
Following a meeting of the varsity's top brass yesterday chaired by the VC, the University had issued an official statement saying that the Dean's Committee had been apprised of the summary of the report.
"This is with regard to the minutes of the Deans Committee meeting held on March 14, 2016 and the statement issued to the press on the HL Committee report. The message being conveyed is that the Deans were apprised of the summary of the report.
"Unfortunately, that does not make clear that we were not provided any details on what charges were being made against individual students and what the punishments recommended are in each case, let alone details of the evidence on which the recommendations were based," the Deans said in a joint letter.
"We were also told that each student issued a show cause notice by the Proctor would be given a copy of the report, which we understand has not been done. On the other hand, media is full of conflicting stories in which periodic references to the Deans Committee makes it appear that we are in the know of the charges and punishments (and, therefore, implicitly approve them)," they wrote.
The letter has been written by the Dean, Arts and Aesthetics, Dean School of international Studies, Dean, School of Physical Sciences, Dean, School of Social Sciences and Dean School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies.
A high-level committee appointed by the university to probe the event organised to protest the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and JKLF leader Maqbool Bhat, besides other related issues is believed to have recommended expulsion of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, PhD scholars Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, and two others.
Based on the findings of the panel, the varsity has issued show cause notices to 21 students including Kanhaiya, who is out on bail, as well as Umar and Anirban, currently in judicial custody on sedition charges.
The committee was formed on February 10 to probe the controversial event during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.
