Disclaimer: Vox Populi, IIT Kanpur, is the exclusive owner of the information on this website. No part of this content may be duplicated, paraphrased, or interpreted in any other way without written consent from Vox Populi. If you want to reproduce any of the content on this page, please contact our chief editors directly or reach out to us by email at voxpopuli@iitk.ac.in
PART ONE :
The election of Vijaya Mishra, a postgraduate student, as the chairperson of the IIT Kanpur Students’ Senate has sparked a series of events within the Student Senate; Ms Vijaya Mishra has alleged that there has been a chain of serious politically motivated attempts to prevent her from assuming the Chairperson’s role. This report delves into the specifics of the Joint Senate Meeting 2024 and the events surrounding Vijaya’s appointment.
Election for Chairperson, Student Senate (2024-25)
The election for the position of the Student Senates’ Chairperson for the Incoming Senate (2024-25) took place on February 9th, 2024, on the Senate Floor. During the meeting, 68 senators cast votes, and Ms. Vijaya Mishra received 36 votes, winning the election by a simple majority.
On March 20th, 2024 – the 9th (Special) meeting of the Senate had an agenda item that proposed to introduce amendments to Appendix F of the Constitution. This amended the eligibility to apply for all elected and nominated posts of the Student’s Gymkhana for PG Students. The attempt to amend this Appendix was made on the mailing list, followed by heavy back and forth by the senators, some of whom claimed the procedures followed were unconstitutional. On 6th April, the Outgoing Chairperson considered the amendment “hereby ratified”, claiming consensus from the Senate.
With the amendment in the background, in the Joint Senate Meeting on 8th April 2024 – before the outgoing chairperson ( Prashant ) could formally hand over the position, he announced that a no-confidence motion had been raised against the newly elected Chairperson, Vijaya Mishra. This development led to immediate procedural complications, as the outgoing Chairperson had already vacated the chair. The No-Confidence Motion, among many things, was based on contentions against Vijaya’s academic eligibility. Pending this Verification from the DoAA office, the meeting was adjourned. The meeting was to reconvene on 12th April at 20:30 .On 12th April at 18:17 – the Chairperson received a response from the Joint Registrar, DoAA office, which stated: “Her academic status is active normal and she is not on warning” (Whether this clears the eligibility criteria awaits clarification). At 19:57 on the same day, the Chairperson communicated to the student list that the senate meeting was postponed due to “ambiguity in a few documents.”
9th (Special) Meeting of the Students’ Senate on March 20th, 2024
One of the agenda items of the meeting, “To consider the finalised versions of Constitution & Appendices”, was proposed to introduce amendments to Appendix F of the Constitution. This included the eligibility to apply for all elected and nominated posts of the Student’s Gymkhana for PG Students.
However, the meeting was adjourned due to the heated environment that arose in the senate following the de-ratification of the Post Conduction Report for Galaxy, and it’s subsequent scrapping, and the issue was subsequently discussed over the senate’s mailing list. On 6th April, the Outgoing Chairperson considered the amendment “hereby ratified”, claiming consensus from the Senate.
Proceeds of Joint meeting of Student meeting held on April 8th, 2024
Joint Meetings are special senate meetings designated to be a handing over session, where both members of the current and incoming senate are present as full-fledged members. The scheduled charge transfer process within the IIT Kanpur Student Senate was halted due to a series of events. The outgoing Chairperson, Mr. Prashant Kumar Mishra, began by presenting his end-term report, which was passed by the Senate without any contentions.
However, just before Prashant could formally hand over the position, he announced that a no-confidence motion had been raised against the newly elected Chairperson, Vijaya Mishra. This development led to immediate procedural complications, as the outgoing Chairperson had already vacated the chair.
A heated discussion ensued on whether the incoming parliamentarian (Mr Ujjwal) or the outgoing parliamentarian (Mr Abhiraj) should chair the proceedings. Ultimately, it was decided that Mr. Abhiraj would serve as the officiating Chairperson, since the charge transfer for Parliamentarians had not taken place yet.
The No-Confidence Motion, among many things, was based on contentions against Vijaya’s candidature, one of which questioned her academic standing and eligibility to assume the Chairperson’s role. After a thorough debate the meeting was adjourned pending the Dean of Academic Affairs’ response on Vijaya’s academic eligibility. The meeting was to reconvene on 12th April. On 12th April at 18:17 – the Chairperson received a response from the Joint Registrar, DoAA office, which stated: “Her academic status is active normal and she is not on warning”. At 19:57 on the same day, the Chairperson communicated to the student list that the senate meeting was postponed due to “ambiguity in a few documents.”
Vijaya’s claims
Vijaya has accused that all of these events were politically motivated actions to prevent her from becoming the chairperson, even though she had been elected to the position through a free and fair democratic process. She had three specific allegations regarding the same:
Vijaya’s first allegation concerns the amendment to Appendix F, passed over mail. This amended the eligibility to apply for all elected and nominated posts of the Student’s Gymkhana for PG Students. She argues that the method through which this amendment was passed and implemented was questionable.
- In order to support her argument, she cited two instances during the previous tenure where, according to her the outgoing Chairperson acted in a contradictory manner.
A). In October 2023, when some senators tried to floor some motions pertaining to changes in the postgraduate eligibility criteria for student senate positions (which is mentioned in Appendix F of the senate constitution), the then chairperson Prashant replied by saying that:
“Since this proposal is of great importance to the postgraduate students and has to be presented to the Academic Senate, the same has to be very meticulous, well researched and thoroughly well drafted. Hence, I’m forming the following ad hoc subcommittee to draft the proposal properly: 1. Mr. Shreyank Goel (Convener) 2. Parliamentarian, Students’ Senate 3. 2 PG members nominated by the convener. This committee shall forward its report to the Academic Senate, with the convener also being one of the postgraduate students’ nominees helping the cause, to the Academic Senate for further discussion.”
B).“Kindly take note the eligibility criteria is enforced by the administration and lies outside the direct jurisdiction of the student senate.” - The amendments to Appendix F have not yet been verified by the Academic Senate.
However, there still remains ambiguity on the exact procedure to amend the academic eligibility requirements for the student senate (i.e. Appendix F), and clarification is awaited on the same.
Vijaya claims that the correct procedure was not followed when the amendment was done.
Vijaya’s second objection pertains to the selection of the Chairperson’s nominee for the interviews to appoint coordinators of cells under the President’s Office. She argues that although it’s not mandatory, it’s established tradition for the incoming chairperson to be nominated, which would have been her in this case. However, Vijaya claims she was not appointed as the nominee for any of these interview processes, which she alleges was a discriminatory action against her.
Vijaya has countered the claims of academic ineligibility against her by stating that she has conclusive evidence that she fulfils the heightened academic criteria set by the Student Senate. She further argues that any amendments made by the Senate cannot be applied to her retrospectively.
To reiterate, the part one presents one perspective on the recent charge handover proceedings held during the Joint Meeting of Students’ Senate 2024. The situation remains under investigation, and a complete picture requires the perspective of all involved parties. Pending response from other stakeholders, updates will be published.
PART TWO
Note: This draft is in continuation to Musical Chairs Part -1
In his mail to the Students’ Senate dated 16/04/24, Prashant Mishra, Chairperson of Students’ Senate (2023-24), stated that Vijaya Mishra, the incoming Chairperson of Students’ Senate (2024-25), is ineligible to assume the aforementioned position under Appendix F which states that a person remains eligible if “They have not
been placed on Academic Probation or Warning by the SUGC/SPGC”. The DoAA office on 10th April at 16:48 had mailed Prashant stating that Vijaya had received a “warning from SPGC for not completing her SOTA seminar in due time”.
Prashant further stated the Charge Handover would resume on 2nd May 2024.
However, trailing the same mail, Ujjawal, the incoming parliamentarian, Students’ Senate(2024-25), had opined that based on his interpretation of various arguments provided(which have been elaborated later), “Ms Vijaya’s academic status is Active Normal, leaving no further discussion on the matter.”
The following article elaborates on the stance of various stakeholders regarding charge handover for the position of Chairperson, Students Senate.
As stated in part one, the Joint Meeting of Students’ Senate 2024 was supposed to reconvene on 12th April at 20:30 but at 19:57 on the same day, the Chairperson communicated to the student list that the senate meeting was postponed due to “ambiguity in a few documents.” When asked about what had happened, Prashant elaborated that he had sent a mail to DOAA on Tuesday (9th April, the day after the Joint Meeting of Students’ Senate ) asking for clarification on whether Vijaya was under academic warning in lieu of her thesis credits and SOTA seminar as discussed in the Senate.
To this, the DOAA office replied on Wednesday(10th April), stating that: Ms Vijaya’s “department had been communicated to issue her warning” based on her thesis credits. Additionally, she was also placed on “warning by the SPGC” for not completing her SOTA.
However, on the day of the meeting(12/04/2024), the DOAA office again sent a mail to the Chairperson of the Students’ Senate at 16:48 . Following the previous mail, this mail had an addition to the first point, which stated that with respect to her thesis credits, “ Her academic status is normal/active, and she is not on any warning.” However, the second point of the mail, which mentioned that she had received a warning from SPGC regarding her SOTA, remained the same.
These two seemingly contradictory points led to ambiguity according to Prashant. The offices were closed since it was Friday night; moreover, the DoAA was unavailable due to him being out of the station. Thereby, Prashant could not confirm Vijaya’s academic status and had to postpone the meet.
Later, when the DoAA returned, the President and the Chairperson went to the DoAA office. As per Prashant, after confirming Vijayas’ academic eligibility from DoAA, he mailed the Students’ Senate, informing them that Vijaya was ineligible to become the Chairperson under Appendix F as she had received a warning from SPGC.
In the first part of the article, Vijaya had alleged that “there has been a chain of concerted, politically motivated attempts to prevent her from assuming the Chairperson’s role.”
To this, Dhwanit asserted that “I do not believe this all to be politically motivated, we do what is required, what is right, what follows the book. The amendment was to bring equality.”
Regarding the amendment made to Appendix F over the mailing list, Prashant further clarified that on the matter of relaxing CPI criteria for PG students, he had asked to discuss and reform it through the academic senate because the criteria were sourced from the student governance report published by the academic senate. However, the same is not valid for every clause of Appendix F; hence, the SUGC warning clause was not considered to be in the jurisdiction of the Academic Senate.
The Chairperson of the Students’ Senate has the sole right to determine who will become his nominee in the selection committee of overall coordinators of various cells in the upcoming tenure. Vijaya had claimed that her not being appointed as the nominee for any of the interview processes was discriminatory action against her as this was not in line with the tradition. Prashant agreed that his not nominating Vijaya was against the convention. However, he argued that the person taking the interview of OC of any cell should be very knowledgeable, and according to him, as per his experience in the senate with her, “Vijaya was not knowledgeable enough to interview anyone for the position of OC.”
Prashant further adds that he had kept in mind that the incoming senate should have a say in appointments of OC of various cells; thus, all his nominees were incoming senators, whose credibility he justified based on their past experience in gymkhana. He reiterated that all the nominees for the interview process, including Dhruv, were part of the incoming senate.
In contrast to Vijaya’s claim that amended criteria cannot be applied to her retrospectively, both Dhwanit and Prashant argued that everyone is required to maintain eligibility throughout their tenure; hence, the amended eligibility criteria would apply to them.
On the claim that the amendment (to know in detail about the amendment, refer to part one) would restrict the participation of PG students and was targeted towards Vijaya, we spoke to Dhruv, the Incoming President of Students’ Gymkhana. He said that roughly similar numbers of both UG and PG students are placed under warning every year, and the reason they are asked to refrain from participation in Gymkhana activities is that they can focus on improving their academic record. Thus, placing similar restrictions on UGs and PGs doesn’t target anyone in particular.
Additionally, regarding Vijaya’s academic status being reflected as “normal” in Pingala, Prashant elaborated that Appendix F mentions whether the person concerned had been placed under warning or not among several other criteria; the said appendix nowhere mentions eligibility in relation to “academic status.”
Future Discourse
As per the mail sent by Prashant on the Students’ Senates list, Vijaya is ineligible to become Chairperson. Prashant has also stated in the mail that the charge handover meet will convene on 2nd May.
However, in a thread of the same mail, Ujjawal, the incoming parliamentarian, opined that Vijaya is academically eligible to become the Chairperson.
The 3 points raised to support his interpretation were.
- Opinion of Students’ Senate: Regarding Students’ Senate, Ujjawal states that Vijaya “satisfactorily meets all eligibility criteria stipulated in Appendix F of the Gymkhana constitution. Concerning her Academic Status, it is confirmed as ActiveNormal.”
- Opinion of Academic Senate’s Nominee: Ujjawal further adds that in his conversation with Mr Rijin Rajan, Student Nominee to the
Academic Senate, Rijin, “concluded that warnings for PhD students are
decided solely on CPI and thesis credit evaluations, neither of which
applies to Ms. Vijaya. Additionally, he clarified that the SoTA extension
does not constitute a warning. Thus, it is affirmed that her Academic
Status is not under warning.” - Opinion of DoAA Office: Ujjawal also elaborates that according to the DoAA office,” her Academic Status is Active Normal, and she is not on Warning,”
Thereby, Ujjawal, the incoming Parliamentarian Students’ Senate, interprets that Ms Vijaya is eligible to hold the position of Chairperson of the Students’ Senate.
Thus, the concerned stakeholders seem divided into two parties with conflicting opinions on Vijaya’s eligibility. With the charge transfer meeting to be held on 2nd May, we look forward to the conclusion of “Musical Chairs: Who sits when the music stops?”
Written by: Amoghsiddu, Chaitanya Nitawe, Dhriti Barnwal, Harsh A. Kumar, Himanshu Mahale, Kumar Shubham, Yeva Gupta, Vedant Bansod, Yash Yadav
Edited by: Kaushal Jain, Aujasvit Datta, Mayur Agrawal, Kushagra Srivastava
