After being served a rustication notice from the administration, Swati Singh, former Councillor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) has also been served an eviction notice, ordering her to vacate her hostel room.
This notice, dated November 17, says that Swati will be evicted from her room in the Godavari Hostel on the JNU Campus at 10 am tomorrow, November 21. Swati is also asked to “be present at the above-mentioned date and time in her room to facilitate the action of the Hostel/University.”
Another notice was sent to the former student leader, who is also a fourth-year PhD student in Russian Studies, on November 17, ordering her to vacate the hostel premises with immediate effect.
These notices follow her rustication orders from JNU, due to allegedly being found “guilty of manhandling a lady security guard and misbehaving with the other security guards posted at the gate of Convention Centre, JNU on 29 August 2023.”
“Unfair and illegal orders,” Swati says
Speaking to EdexLive, Swati says that these orders are extremely unfair, as her appeal to rescind the rustication order is still pending with the appellate body of the university, that is the vice-chancellor. She says, “No student-friendly administration would rusticate and evict a student while not responding to their appeals. It is illegal to take any punitive action against me, with my appeal still pending with the VC.”
She says that without a solid response to her appeal, be it acceptance or rejection, she is stuck and cannot fight back. “If I approach the courts, they would ask me to wait until the university administration responds to my appeal,” she says.
Further, she says that she would be left with no accommodation on the campus after her eviction, which would affect her PhD thesis and submissions.
“I am a non-NET fellow, and I have not been receiving my fellowship amount for the past 10 months. I have no other source of income, so I cannot move outside the campus into the city either. Nor can I go back to my hometown,” she elaborates.
A history of notices
This is not the first time Swati has been served such notices, she says — she has been served 15 show-cause notices and four punishments allegedly due to her involvement in various movements against the administration, like the ones against the fee hike and mandatory attendance.
Just before this, she had to fight against this action from the university administration legally — and it took her two court orders and two hefty fines of Rs 10,000 to even be able to register for this semester.
