High Court allows plea of 7 former members for Senate poll

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, March 23

Just about three months after seven former senators of Panjab University moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court demanding the Senate elections, Justice Fateh Deep Singh today allowed their plea.

What it indicates

The detailed judgment was not yet available. However, the official website of the High Court showed the case status as "allowed", indicating that the elections to the PU apex governing body would now be held.

The detailed judgment was not yet available. However, the official website of the High Court showed the case status as "allowed", indicating that the elections to the PU apex governing body would now be held.

The Senate term ended on October 31 last year. However, the elections were not held for the first time since Partition to the Senate, having 91 members, of whom 36 are nominated by the Chancellor.

The petitioners, demanding the Senate elections, had alleged that a proposed committee slated to replace the Senate would comprise representatives of the ruling political party. Among other things, the petitioners had claimed that certain candidates owing allegiance to the ruling political dispensation, apprehending an unsuccessful contest, wanted the Senate to be abolished and replaced by a committee.

The petitioners, Prof Keshav Malhotra and others, through counsel R Kartikeya, had submitted that they had reasons to believe that the candidates owing allegiance to the ruling political dispensation initially pressured the university administration and their political bosses to defer the Senate elections to avoid an unsuccessful contest. "They had now started another agenda for abolishing the Senate and to replace it by a committee, which would comprise representatives of the ruling political party as the committee would be nominated by the office of the Chancellor, through the Ministry of Home Affairs".

Kartikeya had added that the agenda was being further supported by some 30 former employees/officers of the university, who appeared to be looking for post-retirement rehabilitation and had already been tipped to be part of the proposed committee.

Their objective to abolish the Senate had been openly advocated from time to time as their illegal actions were overruled by the Senate and the Syndicate. Some of them even went to the extent of describing the members of the Senate as "vultures".

from The Tribune https://ift.tt/3rp5o0x