JNU students union accuses administration of breaking open GSCASH office

NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) today accused the administration of violating a Supreme Court order and breaking open locks of the disbanded anti-sexual harassment panel's office.

"In an absolutely outrageous move through a clear misreading of a Supreme Court order, the JNU administration broke open the locks of GSCASH office yesterday night. The GSCASH office contains files that are highly confidential and sensitive," JNUSU president Geeta Kumari said in a statement.

JNU Registrar Pramod Kumar and Rector 1 Chintamani Mahapatra did not respond to calls or messages from PTI.

The JNU administration replaced the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) with Internal Complaints Committee(ICC) on September 18 last year in its 269th executive council meeting, a move which was extensively criticised by student and teacher bodies, apart from women's rights organisations.

The administration attributed the dissolution of GSCASH to the UGC(Prevention, prohibition and redressal of sexual harassment of women employees and students in higher educational institutions) Regulations, 2015.

"Supreme Court order dated 23rd April 2018 put a stay on the previous High Court order - dated on April 10 2018 asking JNU to form temporary ICC comprising of GSCASH and ICC members to deal with the pending thirty one cases with GSCASH - and mandated ICC to proceed with the complaints meanwhile," Kumari said.

"This in no way means that the sealed office of GSCASH has to be broke open to take away the files with absolute disregard for cases of sexual harassment and complainants," she added.

The students' body condemned the incident and said, "JNU administration and ICC are answerable to the complainants of cases with GSCASH without whose consent the files were taken away."