The administration of South Asian University on Monday (22 July) notified a female student to vacate the hostel room within two days after accusing her of “spreading rumours and lies and instigating students against the university”
Yashada Sawant is a second-year post-graduate student at the international university established by the eight member nations of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC). In recent years, the administration has been accused of arbitrary actions against students and facilities, most of it revoked by courts in Delhi.
Sawant, who hails from Mumbai, told Maktoob that the university has yet to share any other information. As the deadline ends on Wednesday, she has decided to not move out of the hostel citing that she is from Mumbai without any local guardian in Delhi.
25 years old said all she can recall is that she had discussed the resignation of a senior faculty in the department with classmates and department friends on the WhatsApp group.
“By evening I got a call from the Dean of Students’ assistant and she asked me to come for a meeting. In the meeting, they accused me of “instigating” students and had no base for these allegations. I asked them to show me the proof and also have a proper enquiry given the meeting didn’t have the Proctor or the Dean of Students,” Sawant told Maktoob.
“They were only threatening me and not giving any proof or evidence for such allegations. After the meeting, I got a mail that I have to vacate the hostel in two days. I don’t know how can someone give such a judgement without any enquiry.”
Maktoob has seen the email correspondence between Swanat and a faculty requesting a formal enquiry into the allegations before taking action. The faculty said the decision to debar from the hostel stands although the person didn’t acknowledge the request for a formal proceeding. SAU administration has not issued any public statement other than the notice.
A student group at the university, Rokeya Collective, issued a statement calling the move “a grave miscarriage of justice and a blatant abuse of administrative power”.
“In the past, we have seen the University administration unjustly target students like Apoorva YK, Bhimraj and Umesh Joshi, who took their cases to the High Court of India. In each of these cases, the students prevailed, and the court’s rulings unequivocally demonstrated that the South Asian University had misused its power and harassed students without any legitimate reason. These repeated judicial rebukes highlight a persistent pattern of misconduct by the University’s Administration,” the statement reads.
Earlier this year, The Delhi High Court overturned the South Asian University’s November 2022 decision to expel two PhD students, Umesh Joshi, Apoorva Yarabhally and Bhim Raj. The students were expelled for their involvement in a protest demanding a stipend hike in 2020.
In 2023, four professors of the elite institution were accused of “running a Marxist study circle and inciting student protest on campus” and suspended over allegations of misconduct. The four professors along with other nine members of the faculty had protested the university’s decision to bring in police against the student protest.
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