Lyngdoh panel

SC set to annul its own earlier order
Abraham Thomas | New Delhi

‘Ruling on Lyngdoh panel formation unwarranted’

Almost four years after the Supreme Court directed the Centre to set up the Lyngdoh Committee to regulate student union elections, another Bench of the Supreme Court on Monday pledged to set aside the order claiming that the apex court’s intervention with regard to a private body election such as students’ unions was unwarranted.

A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and AK Ganguly said, “We don’t agree with the appointment of the Lyngdoh Committee. Can the court do anything it likes? There are certain principles of exercise of writ jurisdiction. We don’t feel in everything the SC should interfere.”

Castigating the apex bench headed by then Justice Arijit Pasayat for interfering with the student body elections, Justice Katju said, “No writ lies against a private body except the writ of habeas corpus. A student union is not a statutory body….how does writ petition lie in connection with its election?”

When counsel for the petitioner EMS Anam pointed out that the appeals filed by the Kerala University had become infructuous and need to be disposed of, the Bench took serious exception and directed to fix the matter on Friday for laying down guidelines for the apex court in future.

“The law is above Supreme Court and not Supreme Court above law. Let the matter be listed on Friday. We will lay down guidelines that the Supreme Court cannot interfere in private body elections such as of the students’ union.”

The direction by the court is certain to be welcomed by political parties and its students’ unions who were finding it extremely hard to canvass support through the
lavish display of money and muscle power, courtesy the Lakshman rekha drawn by the Lyngdoh panel.

It was in 2005, a committee under former Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh was constituted by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry after the apex court expressed concerns over the growing clout of money and muscle power in college elections. The development came close on the heels of the Professor Sabharwal episode.

Wondering if the students came to colleges to study or conduct politics, the apex court had then tasked the Lyngdoh panel to suggest measures for streamlining the students’ union polls. Espousing its concern, the Bench had noted, “Our idea of college election is that you must be a model student first and student leaders later. But what’s happening today is there are full-time leaders who are part-time students.”

The Lyngdoh panel had issued a slew of directions, important among which were putting a ceiling of Rs 5,000 on election expenses and use of hand-made posters and banners to be pasted at designated places. Further, eligibility criteria were fixed for the participating candidates: For undergraduate students (17-22 years) and postgraduate (24-25 years).

The candidate was supposed to be a regular student, having no previous criminal record, should have fulfilled the attendance criteria and ought to have cleared all subjects in the previous terms. Every candidate was required to submit an account of his expense within two weeks after declaration of result. The court had constantly monitored the compliance of the Lyngdoh panel’s directions and the Centre had informed the court that all the Central universities were asked to fall in line by submitting annual action taken reports.

With all due respects to the learned judges Markandey Katju and A K Ganguly, I beg to differ.
The judiciary has always intervened when the executive did not perform their duties as required by the constitution.
Students go to colleges to study. At least that is why the parents spend their money.
However political parties infiltrate these colleges and find that at this impressionable age it is easy to brainwash them into accepting their ideology.
We have seen how violent student elections have been in Bengal and Delhi, resulting enen in murder.
It was to stem this rot that the Lyngdoh panel was set up to cleanse the student body of this evil.
It seems that the strident cries of judicial activism has had the affect of drawing the judiciary into a shell and put a full stop on actions to help the common man.
We require more judicial activism instead of less, at least until the political parties are cleansed of corruption.
Nothing has changed melord to withdraw the Lyngdoh panel