Stay 100m away from Mumbai’s TISS campus, court tells protesting students

They are protesting the decision to withdraw fee waiver granted to SC, ST, OBC candidates who were eligible for Government of India Post Matric Scholarship last year.

A city civil court on Tuesday asked students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), who are protesting on the campus for the past four months, to stay at least 100m away from the boundary of the institute.

Students protest the decision to withdraw the fee waiver granted to SC, ST and OBC candidates, on Mumbai campus. (HT File Photo)

The students are protesting the decision to withdraw the fee waiver granted to SC, ST and OBC candidates who were eligible for the Government of India Post Matric Scholarship (GoI-PMS) last year. “The protest has fizzled out over the past few weeks. There have still been instances of students blocking gates and creating hurdles in the routine work. We welcome the court order,” said a spokesperson of the institute.

Students have criticised the court order. “How can protesting and fighting for social justice be unlawful. We will take legal advice to understand the court order and then take a call on the next step,” said one of the students.

A group of students alleged the institute made false allegations against them. “Some of us have received a memo from the institute for our role in last week’s ‘vandalism’, which didn’t happen in reality,” said the student.

In the beginning, the agitation got support from students of various universities across the country. In the last week of March, the administration filed a suit against a few students, claiming they “encroached upon the registrar’s office and blocked the administrative wing of the institute, thus hampering the management process”.