The Delhi High Court has denied the Delhi University SFI student activists' plea to let them file nominations for the upcoming DU Students' Union (DUSU) elections on September 12. The court also denied their plea to postpone the elections as well. Justice Sanjeev Sachdev condemned the alleged acts of violence on campus and asked the university to file a report by the next hearing on October 17.
Members of the SFI and All India Students' Federation (AISF) had accused the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) of stopping, attacking, and tearing their nomination forms in front of the Arts Faculty's Gate No 4 at the Delhi University on September 4 — the last day to file the nominations. However, the ABVP has countered the accusation saying that the SFI and AISF students had reached late and all the ABVP members did was to stop them from indulging in violence.
Tom Pious, a student of the Law Faculty at DU and a core committee member of the SFI Delhi Unit said, "The judge condemned such acts of violence inside a university and asked the university to file a report on the same bu October 17. The verdict did not come as a relief to us because the elections are tomorrow. We will not be able to contest the elections this time."
The students had filed the plea on September 6 and the students had protested on the previous day about the issue on campus. "SFI and AISF have formed an alliance for the upcoming elections. Activists of both organisations were attacked twice by ABVP on the same day. No SFI member was able to file their nominations. However, one AISF member managed to file his nomination," said Utkarsh, an SFI Delhi State Secretariat member.
He said that even the police found it difficult to save them from the large mob that had attacked the candidates. "There were more than 80 people who attacked the four or five of us," said Utkarsh. "Their aim was not to assault but prevent us from filing the nominations. The attackers were not students, but a group of people who accompanied the ABVP candidates," he added.
ABVP, on the other hand, had denied all the allegations. "This is highly impossible. They couldn't have been assaulted at a space with this tight police security. The SFI only wants the elections to be postponed," said Siddharth Yadav, Delhi State Secretary, ABVP.
