Mumbai: Court issues contempt notices to NMIMS heads

The Bombay high court on Tuesday issued contempt notices to Dr Rajan Saxena and V Karunakaran, vice-chancellor and director of the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).

The Bombay high court on Tuesday issued contempt notices to Dr Rajan Saxena and V Karunakaran, vice-chancellor and director of the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).

The notice was issued to them for failing to comply with a court order asking the institute to issue a bonafide certificate to a management student who suffers from a rare neurological disorder and wanted the certificate to obtain a visa to travel to London for treatment.

“This is a clear case of deliberate and willful disobedience of the order passed by this court,” said the division bench of justice VM Kanade and justice AR Joshi. “The college [NMIMS] has for no reason taken an adamant stand and made this a prestige issue,” the bench said, disapproving the institution’s refusal to issue the certificate, despite court orders.

The bench was acting on the plea of Vrunda Mehta, a resident of Hyderabad who is pursuing her postgraduate diploma in management from the Hyderabad campus of the deemed university. The court had on March 25 directed the university to issue her the bonafide certificate. The order was issued after the student complained that though she had been requesting for the certificate since January 2015, it was not being issued to her.

The court has directed the vice-chancellor and the director to appear in court for the next hearing, warning that their failure to do so may result in warrants being issued against them. “The intention was obviously to extract more money from the student,” the judges said.