S. Muneer
Aligarh .The Aligarh Muslim University administration managed a studied silence on holding the yearly Students Union elections. The last election held was for the session 2017-18. There hasn’t been an election for the last eight years, despite students demands, protests, memorandums, agitations, including fast unto death. Unfortunately, no tangible reason is provided by the University for not holding the elections. Some of these agitations of the students have lasted for a month. Mr Syed Kaif Hasan, student of LLM at the Department of Law, sat on a hunger strike from 14.08.2025 that lasted nine days. The Vice Chancellor visited the Dharna site and promised to hold the elections and then offered Kaif juice to break his fast. However, the election was never held and students had to stage another Dharna again this year ending in another fast unto death.
The students have been arguing that the Vice Chancellor under the Statutes of the University has no powers except the power to “see to that the Act, the Statutes, the Ordinances and the Regulations are duly observed”. The agitate students emphasized the Vice Chancellor has failed in her duty since Statute 34 of the University states “There shall be a Students Union…”, making Students Union a mandatory requirement. It is the Vice Chancellor’s duty to ensure a Students Union is in place each year, which she has failed. The students argue that the keeper of law is ignoring the law instead of safeguarding.
There has not been an AMU Students Union from 2018-19 session onwards, the statutes of the University have been violated continuously for the last eight years. Interestingly the students point out that we have been paying fee for Students Union all this time. Rough calculations show that a minimum sum of thirty lakh rupees (Rs 30, 00, 000/-) are generated each year towards the AMU Students Union Fund. The total sum, as of date, in the head AMU Students Union fund accumulated over the last eight years roughly comes to around two crore and fifty lakh rupees (Rs. 2, 50, 00, 000/-).
The students have been contributing each year and continue to do so to the AMU Students Union Fund. It is obvious now that the University had no intention of holding elections and having a Union. University teachers argue that now it is obvious that the collection of AMU Students Union fee accumulating into a huge amount was rather absurd. The 2018-19 session had no Union and therefore no expenditure incurred, then in the next session no AMU Students Union fee should not have been collected. The collection would have been required if a Union was in place for a year, then funds would be required for the next year Union. The AMU Students Union fee is collected at the time of admission to the session. It appears the students say that there is some design to this and should be looked into. However, once the Union is in place the University will have to show the amount in the AMU Students Union Fund, which should be its first demand, so that the amount can be used gainfully for improving the Union Building, etc.
Prof Tariq Islam, a nationally renowned scholar of philosophy and a nationally renowned RTI activist, filed an RTI application for information on the year wise amount generated from 2018-19 till date, that is for the years there was no Students Union and the total amount till date. Prof Islam waited for thirty days, as required by the RTI Act, but did not receive a reply. He says that this indicated the intention of the University not to reveal the accumulated amount of nearly two crore and fifty lakh rupees Rs. 2, 50, 00, 000/-, as per the rough calculations. He therefore filed an appeal after which he received a reply by CPIO/AFO (Students), Mr Mohd Amil, that shocked Prof Islam and substantiated his suspicion of the University’s intention not to disclose the amount in the AMU Students Union Fund. The reply said the information cannot be provided as it is ‘third party’ information and exempted from disclosure under Section 8(1)(e) of the RTI Act. Prof Islam points out that Section 8(1)(e) does not remotely mention ‘third party’ and is artificially imported by the CPIO/Mr Amil. ‘Third party’ is is mentioned under Section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act, which has not been invoked. He further points out that if it is ‘third party’ information then the RTI Act mandates the exercise Section 11 of RTI Act, which again is not even remotely mentioned in the reply. Further, Prof Islam says that by mentioning Section 8(1)(e) the CPIO is treating the information as if it has come from a single student, ignoring that AMU Students Union fee fund collection from the students is a public activity and so it’s amount and utilization is a matter of administrative transparency, which in turn serves a larger public interest overriding any claiming of a fiduciary relationship. Prof Islam argues that for some unknown reasons the funds are a very guarded secret, which reminds one of other such funds at the central level, what is there to hide is beyond imagination!
The Honorary Treasurer of the Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union (AMUSU) under rules of the Union is a member of the university’s teaching staff elected by the Executive Committee of the Union within one month of the new student union assumes charge. However, Prof Mohd Nafees A Ansari is shown on the web-page of the Union on the AMU Website to be the Hon. Treasurer from 2017. However, there are strong rumours on the AMU Campus that a huge amount from the AMU Students Union Fund has been reappropriated from to the University corpus fund, whereas such a reappropriation is not tenable and either the Hon. Treasurer or an Officer of the University has reappropriate the funds, without the permission or agreement of the AMU Students Union, which was not possible since there was no Union since 2018-19 till date.
