Allow student to stay in guest house: Delhi HC tells JNU

The Delhi high court has directed Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to permit a blind student to stay in the varsity’s guest house without charging any fee.

The court was dealing with a plea filed by Sanjeev Kumar Mishra, pursuing his MA in sociology from JNU, who sought directions to the varsity to provide him hostel accommodation. In his plea, the student contended that though he was staying in the same hostel while pursuing MA (PISM), the varsity did not grant him any hostel when he took admission in the second post graduate programme on the ground that the rules did not permit grant of accommodation to a student pursuing a second PG course.

“The petitioner is unable to live outside the campus in a rented accommodation due to his 100% visual disability coupled with financial constraints and has made multiple requests to the University Administration in the past one year for allocating him a hostel room. Due to unavailability of an affordable and accessible accommodation the petitioner stays at the library night and day and takes his meals through coupons from the hostel mess or from the university canteens,” read the plea.

Mishra in his plea also contended that the varsity’s rule of refusing to allocate hostels to students pursuing a second post graduate programme was violative of Right to Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. “The rule cannot be applied to all the cases, irrespective of the physical disabilities that individual students may suffer from,” the plea read.

To be sure, the JNU on January 4 had assured the court to provide an accommodation to Mishra till the next date.

On January 22, Mishra appearing through advocate Rahul Bajaj, submitted that though the varsity had provided him a room in the campus guest house but was charging ₹100 per day, which was beyond his financial reach.

“Given the peculiar circumstances of the case, the JNU is directed to permit the petitioner to stay in the said room till the next date of hearing without charging him any fees,” a bench of justice C Hari Shankar said in a January 22 order, made public on Wednesday.