Students say roll back order, LU says sorry!

THESE WERE some of the questions, which student leaders put to Lucknow University administration during their daylong agitation the day after the varsity cancelled LUMAT counselling and ordered fresh merit list.

* Why hasn’t any action been taken against the teachers involved in LUMAT admission bungling?
* Why should the student pay the price for teachers’ mistakes?
* Who knows, the teachers might also have done mischief in the LUMAT entrance test?

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THESE WERE some of the questions, which student leaders put to Lucknow University administration during their daylong agitation the day after the varsity cancelled LUMAT counselling and ordered fresh merit list.

Agitated student leaders demanded stern action against the erring teachers during their demonstration at the V-C’s residence that lasted for about four hours. They also demanded LU to roll back its decision on re-counselling. But, the LU refused to relent under pressure. The varsity stands by the decision for re-counselling. “The decision is based on logic and we shall take the matter to its logical end. We have detected various anomalies in the admission process and decided to rectify them. Non- adherence to the reservation policy is one such,” teachers said.

Surprisingly, the LU administration is silent on the bungling issue. “It is too early to take action against any teacher. The process of identifying the culprits is a long exercise and the consent of executive council is a must for that,” sources close to the V-C said. But, student leaders were not satisfied with this reply. To settle the deadlock, two rounds of meeting of the student leaders and the LU V-C were held.

But both the meetings did not produce any result as the student leaders were bent upon the roll back of re-counseling. The V-C says: “I’m convinced that a large-scale anomalies took place and I’ve ample proof about it. I also received several phone calls alleging bungling in the counselling. When verified we found them to be true. We don’t want to do injustice with the meritorious students hence we decided to prepare a fresh merit list.”

Even though LU sources admitted that as many as 30 to 40 pc admission were done out of turn without adhering to reservation policy but at the same time they are not keen to nail the culprits. “This is not simple as most people think. It would require a long exercise in nailing all the culprits. Our priority is to go fresh counselling so that student does not suffer. All other matters are secondary,” officials said.

The student leaders, however, were in no mood to give up as that staged demonstration for good four hours. They were extremely unhappy the way the V-C behaved with them. According to them will LU compensate for any student whose name will not figure in their fresh list.

They students also alleged that fresh counselling would eat away an extra month and will throw the academic session out of rails.