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% 03.11.2025

1. The present petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, 1950 ("Constitution"), inter alia, seeking to quash Clause 5 (j) of the General Instructions issued for the Internal Committee Elections 2024-25, Jawaharlal Nehru University ("JNU"), by respondent no. 3, i.e., Presiding Officer of the Internal Committee. The petitioners further seek quashing of the election results dated 05th November, 2024, whereby, respondent nos. 4 to 6 have been declared as the elected candidates of the Internal Committee ("IC"), and seek directions to respondent no. 1 to conduct fresh elections of the IC as per the Rules and Regulations for Election of Student Representatives to IC ("Elections Rules") dated 28th October, 2024.

3.6 The Saksham Guidelines had not been incorporated when the elections were notified on 22nd August, 2024, and the Elections Rules were released on 28th October, 2024. Clause 1 of the Election Rules provide for elections of one student representatives each from the three separate and distinct constituencies created for Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Research Scholars. Clause 6 of the said Election Rules, require students of respective constituencies to cast his/her vote to his/her constituency only. Furthermore, Clause 8(b) of the same Election Rules provides that a student can file nomination only for his/her respective constituency, and Clause 8(d) requires that the proposer and seconder must be from the same constituency as the candidate. Thus, the Election Rules require separate and distinct constituencies so that students of each constituency get proper representation. The list of the final candidates was also finalized on the basis of separate and distinct constituencies.

13. The university issued a Notification on 22nd August, 2024, thereby, scheduling elections to induct student members into the IC. The Election Rules dated 28th October, 2024, for election of student representatives to the IC stipulated that students of respective constituency i.e., undergraduate, postgraduate and research scholar, could cast their vote to their respective constituency only. Meaning thereby, an undergraduate student could vote only for election of representative from the undergraduate level, and could not cast vote for election of the student representatives from the postgraduate and research scholar level. Likewise, postgraduate and research scholar students could vote only for electing the student representative from their respective postgraduate and research scholar level only, and not from other constituencies. The said Election Rules are reproduced hereunder:

19. Increasing the voting base wherein the students were allowed to vote for all the three constituencies, cannot be considered as amounting to change in the Rules of the game, as contended by the petitioners. The purpose of change in the Rule was to increase the participation of the students in the democratic process of electing all the three student representatives, and no error is found in the decision made by the respondents. The respondents have not changed the Rules of election, or the criteria of eligibility of the candidates contesting the elections. The respondents by way of the subsequent General Instructions have only increased the voting base, wherein, students across all the three constituencies were granted opportunity to vote for the election of student representatives of all the three constituencies, and not restrict them to cast their vote merely for election of the student representative from their constituency. There is logic to the same as the student representatives were to be part of the IC whenever the issue involved was a complaint made by a student, irrespective of the constituency to which such complainant student belonged.