D
The Calcutta High Court on Friday moved to end the week-long standoff at Visva Bharati, ordering students to hold their protest outside the campus. Since last Saturday, Vice-Chancellor Vidyut Chakraborty was confined to his house on August 23 by a group to protest the expulsion of students who had participated in a campus protest in January 2020.
“All demonstrations, banners, barricades and barricades outside the residence of the Vice-Chancellor shall be removed immediately by the Officer-in-Charge, Shantiniketan Police Station. Besides his own security guards, the Vice-Chancellor will also be provided with three constables from the police station for his security,” Justice Rajasekhar Mantha said in his order.
He prohibited the use of loudspeakers inside the university campus and ordered the protesters to remove any material brought into the campus and dispose of all garbage in an orderly manner.
“The locks on the administrative building and any other part of the university by the students shall be opened by the Officer-in-Charge, Santiniketan Police Station and the premises shall be handed over to the persons concerned. No demonstration shall be made by any student or any person within a distance of 50 meters of any part or part of the University, especially by schools, classrooms, residence of the Vice-Chancellor, teachers, professors, officers, staff library, administrative officers . buildings, laboratories etc,” the judge said.
“No employee of the University, including VCs, professors, teachers, officers and other staff, shall be prevented from entering the campus or the schools and departments concerned. All obstructions to any CCTV cameras in the University at any place shall be removed immediately and a report in this regard shall be submitted independently by the Registrar and the Officer-in-Charge of Shantiniketan Police Station,” the court ordered.
The court said it would soon hear the complaints of the three expelled students.
The court called for immediate restoration of the normal functioning of the university and ordered the officer-in-charge of the Santiniketan police station to provide all possible help to ensure this.
.