Delhi HC takes strong view on cops’ inaction in law faculty violence

New Delhi: “You have thrown her to the wolves”, the Delhi high court told the Delhi police on Thursday for its inaction when a woman dean of Delhi University’s Campus Law Centre (CLC) was held hostage in her office last week by protesting students.

Ved Kumari, the dean of CLC who broke down while narrating the incident to the court, alleged that the students had entered her office and threatened her with dire consequences in the presence of police personnel.

Claiming that there was lawlessness in the campus for the past one year and several complaints to the police had not been acted upon, she alleged that during the protests, the students threatened her saying “tumhe muh dikhane layak nahin chhodenge (you will not be in a position to show your face).”

The high court had on its own initiated proceedings relating to the reported violence during a protest by the law faculty students on May 19 against the dean for not being allowed to sit in the year’s semester examination on grounds of shortage of attendance.

A bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Mukta Gupta pulled up the police for not taking any action when the protest turned violent, the Dean's office vandalised and threats were given to her.

“You have thrown her to wolves. You are feeding wolves by not separating them from the sheep. Police is seeing that a cognisable offence is being committed in front of its eyes but they do not act unless the institution’s head informs them.

“Under which law it says that a police official cannot act on its own if a cognisable offence is being committed in front of its eyes. You are acting contrary to law,” it said.

The court asked the police commissioner, DU vice-chancellor, CLC’s incharge Prof. Usha Tandon and dean Ved Kumari to file affidavits by July 11 regarding the incident which occurred inside the CLC precincts of CLC in May and December last year and again on May 19.