University elections to be postponed till voters list updated: HC

Mumbai, Jan 2 (UNI) The Bombay High Court today directed postponement of the University of Mumbai's senate elections to the Teachers' Constituency until the electoral list was updated and the procedure for election completed in accordance with the Bombay University Act, 1974.

Vacation judge, Roshan Dalvi upheld the submissions of the University of Mumbai College Principals Association contending that the electoral list was faulty and not updated since 2005.

She stated, ''The election scheduled for January 12 shall be postponed till completion of the procedure of finalisation of the electoral roll in view of the errors that need to be corrected and list to be updated.'' Advocate Nitin Deshpande, on behalf of the Association, told the court that a representation had been made to the Vice Chancellor (VC) of the University on November one, 2006, informing him that the electoral roll was defective and needed to be updated.

Also as per the defination of 'teacher' in the Act, College Principals were also included in the same category. There were 300 such eligible voters missing from the current electoral roll, he submitted.

Mr Deshpande also told the court that there were only 4,000 names on the roll while some of these teachers had retired and some expired but not deleted from the same.

Advocate Rui Rodrigues along with Advocate P M Palshikar, on behalf of the University, VC and Registrar, opposed the submission contending that the University was only following directions of the Chancellor (Governor) S M Krishna, not to alter the electoral list.

Following the directions, the University had issued a circular stating that the list of 2005 would stand for the forthcoming election on January 12.

However, the petitioners wrote to the Chancellor on December 14 submitting their grievances and were informed that he had made no directions to the University regarding elections. In fact, he then directed the elections to be held as per the provision of the Bombay University Act 1974.

The petitioners again made a representation to the VC on December 28 but nothing was done even after the clarification from the Chancellor and hence challenged the University notification for the election dated December eight, 2006.

UNI