In the wake of a horrific gang rape incident at South Calcutta Law College, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday ordered that all students’ union rooms in colleges and universities across West Bengal—where student body elections are pending—be locked with immediate effect.
A division bench led by Justice Soumen Sen directed that union rooms in such institutions remain shut and that all recreational activities inside them be prohibited. However, the court permitted the rooms to be used for official purposes only in exceptional cases, and solely with written approval from the registrar of the university or the principal of the concerned institution.
The directive came during the hearing of multiple Public Interest Litigations (PILs) filed in response to the alleged gang rape of a first-year female student at South Calcutta Law College on June 25. The student, in her police complaint, stated that she was tortured for over three hours at various locations within the college premises, including the students’ union room.
The court clarified that its relaxation on conditional usage of union rooms would not apply to South Calcutta Law College, where the students’ union room has already been sealed as part of the ongoing investigation.
The prime accused, Monojit Mishra—a former student and ex-leader of the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP)—is currently in police custody along with two senior students, Zaib Ahmed and Pramit Mukherjee. Mishra, later hired as a casual employee at the college, has allegedly misused the students’ union room in the past for extortion, intimidation, and abuse of junior students, according to public records.
Student union elections across many educational institutions in Bengal have been stalled for several years. The court noted that at least two petitions demanding elections are pending and directed the state government to submit an affidavit outlining its roadmap for conducting the overdue polls.
The matter will be taken up again on July 17. Meanwhile, the investigation into the law college incident is being handled by the Detective Department of the Kolkata Police.
