Jamia Millia Islamia VC nominated 17 students to Jamia schools without power: RTI

In a violation of the university statutes, Jamia Millia Islamia Vice Chancellor Talat Ahmad nominated 17 students for admission to Jamia schools during 2015-16, an RTI query has revealed. The varsity has admitted there is no resolution or circular empowering the Vice Chancellor to nominate candidates to Jamia schools.

In response to an RTI query filed by Sukhdev Jain, the varsity has said, "For the academic session 2015-16, total number of 980 candidates were admitted in Jamia schools of whom 17 were granted admission on recommendation of the Vice Chancellor".

In the same response, the university has also admitted that "there is no Circular/Order/Memo/Notice or Resolution explicitly empowering the Vice Chancellor, who is the Principal Executive and Academic Officer of the university, to nominate candidates for admission on rolls of Jamia schools".

There are five schools run by the Jamia administration- Jamia Senior Secondary School, Syed Abid Hussain Senior Secondary School (Self-finance), Jamia Girls Senior Secondary School, Jamia Middle School and Mushir Fatma Nursery School.

The admissions to these schools are made on the basis of performance in a written test and an interview. The RTI response maintained that the recommendations are "marginal" and have had no impact on the sanctioned strength of admissions.

"Admissions for sanctioned strength of intake of seats in the Jamia Schools is not disturbed by any marginal recommendations by the Vice Chancellor for admission over and above the sanctioned intake in any special exceptional cases," it added.

The university authorities, however, maintained that though there is no official rule, the Vice Chancellor has an "implied" discretion to do so.

"There is an implied discretion that the Vice Chancellor can recommend admissions in exceptional cases vis-a-vis students coming from exceptionally waker sections of society or first generation learners in pursuit of community development," Jamia spokesperson Mukesh Ranjan said.

The issue of "backdoor entries" to Jamia schools also figures in the allegations raised by Obaid Siddiqui, a Mass Communication professor, in his petition to President Pranab Mukherjee, who is Visitor to the university. Siddiqui, was suspended last week by the university for the "misconduct" of approaching the President without having articulated his concerns before the varsity administration.