Not given any details of probe panel report: JNU Deans to VC

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 probe panel of JNU has found two students - Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya- who are in judicial custody in a sedition case, “guilty” of arousing communal, caste or regional feeling or creating disharmony among students.