CHENNAI: While India celebrated its 68th Republic Day recently, the true spirit of the Constitution would continue to reverberate in the corridors of the IIT-Madras. Not many know this: IIT-Madras is probably the first institution in the country to have its own ‘student’ Constitution. In force since 1980-81, the Constitution is getting a makeover with a new, revised draft being readied. The draft reinforces students’ fundamental rights and lays thrust on student governance on campus.
The main highlights of the revised Constitution, a copy of which is available with the Express, are the inclusion of rights and responsibilities of IIT-Madras’ students and introduction of Student Judicial Commission (i.e Student Court). Also, there is a Student Legislative Council (SLC) taking over the responsibility of overseeing financial transactions backed up by an independent ombudsman in the form of the Financial Accountability Committee (FAC), which was missing in the original, which was last revised in 2011.
Sundar Sri, a student legislator and member of re-drafting committee, told the Express that the SLC passed the draft Constitution and forwarded it to the Board of Students for final ratification. “The SLC had several meetings discussing the amendments and policies needed to be incorporated in revised Constitution. Suggestions, corrections and amendments are done by student legislators through voting,” he said.
Among the key changes, inclusion of rights and responsibilities of students as a separate chapter hogs the limelight as it talks exhaustively about students’ fundamental freedom of thought, opinion, expression, belief, faith, and worship; the freedom to form associations and independent organisations and equality as long as they are not affiliated to external political parties, or organisations that promote hatred, violence, and divisiveness on the campus.
Another student legislator, who is part of re-drafting committee and seeks anonymity, says that the current constitution has no safeguards to prevent Boards or the administration from unilaterally overriding the SLC. This means that changes can be made to policies without consulting student representatives.
“The original Constitution was drafted keeping in mind student strength of 3,000 and limited activities. But today, the student strength crossed 9,000. The students’ funds collected in the form of gymkhana fees are pretty high and there comes the role of Financial Accountability Committee, which is proposed in the draft. The draft has been prepared
after getting inputs from legal luminaries. The legislators of IIT-Madras had visited New Delhi and got inputs from various personalities like Supreme Court judges, Members of Parliament,” said Venkataraman Ganesh, Speaker of the SLC.