Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 29: In a PIL filed by Prof Hari Om, seeking direction to ensure fool proof safety of students at NIT, Srinagar, sans J&K police, a high court division bench of Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur today directed that the authorities running the administration were expected to ensure the safety of all the NIT students, irrespective of the state they belong to, ie locals and non locals.
The bench said the safety of NIT students was the paramount duty of the authorities.
The bench said that in so far as other prayers made in the writ petition were concerned, anyone was free to approach the authorities concerned by making a request.
As per the policy, 50 pc students in NIT are admitted from J&K and remaining 50 pc from other states of the country. The admissions to M Tech are made on the basis of national qualifying examination, GATE, without any reservation for the home state. The admission to Ph D programme is also made on the basis of GATE score/NET and a test-cum-interview conducted by the institute without any reservation for the home state. The present enrolment in the institute is 2671 comprising of 2260 B Tech, 258 M Tech and 153 Ph D scholars of which 298 are girls. The number of students residing in the hostels is 1993 boys and 199 girls. The home state students are as follows: B Tech - 1099, M Tech - 124 and Ph D - 138 and students from other states are B Tech - 1152, M Tech - 134 and Ph D - 15.
It is stated in the status report that the institute reopened on February 25, 2016 and atmosphere was very peacefully till April 2016. Even after April 1, 2016, a 2-day National Research Scholars Conclave was conducted on April 2 and 3 in which several academicians from other parts of the country participated. As per the approved academic calendar, Minor-1 examination was conducted as per scheduled from April 11 to April 16 in which most of the non local students failed to appear as about 1200 non local students left their home states. Their examination was rescheduled from May 5 to May 8. Around 441 non local students including 90 girl students returned from their home states and are attending their normal class work from April 25.
The bench said it was evident that the normalcy was restored as 441 non local students including 90 girls had been attending the normal class work from April 25. Thus, other students who had left for their home states could very well go to NIT, Srinagar, and attend their classes. —JNF |
