NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought a response from Delhi University over an alleged violation of its judicial order banning victory processions following the declaration of the DUSU election results on September 19.
A bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia issued notice to the varsity on an application seeking contempt of court proceedings against the DU and the candidates to respond to the plea, alleging that the candidates who won the recent DUSU elections took out victory processions, despite the court's order.
The bench said that it was going to be very tough on the issue, saying, “This is not done. This is just not done."
On September 18, the day of voting, the high court had directed that candidates, students, supporters or anyone else should not take out any victory procession after the declaration of results.
During the hearing on Wednesday, the bench noted that all the candidates who fought the elections, including those who won, have already been issued show cause notices as per the last order. The bench directed the petitioner, advocate Prashant Manchanda, to include all the material in the dossier which has to be prepared and file it before the court.
While issuing the notice, however, the bench observed that “this year there has been some achievement as there was no defacement of property during the DUSU polls, but much needs to be done.”
The counsel for one of the candidates said that on winning elections, certain sentiments become uncontrollable and that this year, even ‘dhols’ did not come.
To this, the bench said, "dhols were still acceptable and would have been fine.”
“The difficulty is otherwise. The difficulty is the show of (muscle and money power). That is the concern," the bench said.
The court had passed the order on September 18, while hearing a plea over alleged violations of Lyngdoh committee recommendations during the DUSU elections.
The bench had also asked the student organisations and candidates to explain why electoral damages should not be imposed for violating the recommendations. It had warned that counting of votes and declaration of results would be stayed if authorities did not take satisfactory action for the "unruly conduct".
The application was filed by Manchanda in his pending petition concerning DUSU polls.
