Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday refused to grant an urgent hearing on a plea filed by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) PhD student Ramadas Prini Sivanandan, who has been suspended for two years for allegedly violating discipline codes and engaging in 'anti-national' activities. The vacation bench of Justices Arif Doctor and Somasekhar Sundaresan noted that there was no urgency in the plea and kept it for hearing on June 18. Seeking an urgent hearing, his counsel Mihir Desai argued that since Sivanandan was suspended, his scholarship was stopped hence he is facing difficulties.
However, the institute filed an affidavit, stating that the petition was not maintainable as Sivanandan has an alternate remedy. The TISS has contended in its affidavit that considering the increasing number of serious misconducts by students, a high-level common committee, comprising officials in senior posts, was constituted to deal with such issues. It claimed that the remedy against any decision by the committee is to file an appeal before the vice-chancellor of the institute.
Hence, Sivanandan could not have come to the HC directly. Asserting that the student has a “history” of organising unauthorised events, TISS cited his participation and “misuse” of the institute's name at a protest rally in Delhi. He urged students to participate in a screening of 'Ram ke Naam' documentary about Babri demolition and the screening of BBC's documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, al.
