New Delhi, September 7
Asserting that it would not brook any indiscipline in the university campuses, the Supreme Court today observed that the country needed good students and not full-time leaders engaged in “goondagardi” and “dadagiri”.

“It is visible in New Delhi. We have seen the posters, photographs, banners and pamphlets. It has to end, otherwise, we have to open a new syllabus or curriculum for dadagiri and goondagardi,” a Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and P. Sathasivam, observed while, however, declining to stay the Delhi University elections that was held on Friday.

Two students had filed intervention applications in the court seeking a stay of the elections on the ground that the entire campus atmosphere was vitiated.

The apex court said ideally the concern of the students should be to become good students and matters like university elections and acquiring leadership should only be a secondary factor.

“But, what we have today is full-time leaders and part-time students. We will not allow that type of situation in this country,” the Bench observed.

The Supreme Court passed the observations while reviewing the steps taken by the union government and states to implement the recommendations made by the Lyngdoh and Raghavan Committees for bringing reforms in the universities’ elections for students unions.

In September, last year, the court, while accepting the recommendations, had directed the union government and the states to file their compliance reports. When a counsel sought to make some submission, the Bench observed that the students union leaders were spending lakhs of rupees and at times much more than what a people’s representative would spend for the general elections, an observation that evoked laughter in the court.

Later, the court directed additional-solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam to submit within two weeks details of the compliance measures undertaken by the states in implementing the recommendations of the Lyngdoh and Raghavan committee reports.

Subramaniam told the court that some of the states had already filed their compliance reports.