Supreme Court agrees to examine validity of BHU rules

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has agreed to examine in November a petition filed by students of Benaras Hindu University (BHU) challenging rules imposed by the varsity on girl students of the Mahila Maha Vidyalaya (MVV) Hostel as to how they should dress, denial of non-vegetarian food and  WIFI facilities, cannot speak on mobiles beyond 10 pm or leave the hostel after 8 pm.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the court would examine the impugned rules in November after advocates Prashant Bhushan urged the court to quash the discriminatory regulations.

In their petition filed in 2016, eight students had earlier challenged the BHU’s decision to suspend them because the students had sat for a dharna in the university campus demanding that their university library should be kept open for 24 hours so that they could study in the library at all hours, especially during the examination days.

The petitioners had enrolled in different courses of higher studies at the University. Their suspension orders were subsequently stayed by the apex court.

However, the matter relating to the gender discrimination was earlier not dealt with by the court. On Monday the matter had come up for further hearing when the advocates for the students sought quashing of the alleged discriminatory rules which would now be taken up in November. No such rules exists for boys.