hunger strike

At HNLU Raipur 23 students began an indefinite hunger strike at 8am today demanding vice chancellor (VC) Sukh Pal Singh’s resignation, after six days of peaceful protests and a no-confidence motion signed by almost the entire student body against the VC proved unsuccessful in outing him from the law school.

On 11 August, Bar & Bench had reported that NLU Delhi political science associate professor Dr Maheshwar Singh had gone on a hunger strike, alleging that his application for professorship three years ago had not been considered fairly without having even been notified of rejection.

230 NLUJA Assam Guwahati students have resorted to an indefinite hunger strike after their boycott of classes and the mid-semester exams went unregistered.

Manipur hunger striker and activist Irom Sharmila was re-arrested today by local police two days after a court ruling that she should be released and could not be charged with attempted suicide for her refusal to eat, reported NDTV.

Hunger strike for permanent Western Orissa HC bench: Orissa high court lawyers launched an indefinite hunger strike today on the third day of their court boycott, to protest against the lack of a permanent bench of the HC in western Orissa. The lawyers have also asked all banks and financial establishments to join them on 7, 8 and 9 February by lowering their shutters [PTI]

Hunger strike for Tamil as official court language: Two advocates of the Madurai bench of the Madras HC went on a “fast-unto-death” four days ago to push for Tamil to be the official language of the HC [TOI]

Lawyers’ strike brings alive dead industrial tribunal: The Mumbai industrial court, which was paralysed for over two months due to having only one judge out of its quorum of nine, is sort of functional again after the appointment of three judges, reportedly, owing to pressure from a strike by the Labour Law Practitioners’ Association Mumbai [Free Press Journal]

Exclusive: The CNLU Patna hunger strike ended on Tuesday after assurances from Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA) of a meeting with the Chief Minister, and two law firms and a journal visited the campus to recruit, according to a student.

CNLU Patna students are reportedly protesting against the limited job prospects offered by the national law school.

Panjab University law school students have called off a hunger strike after several hours as the University caved in to their demands.

The Times of India (TOI) reported today that the Panjab University Student Union (PUSU) and the Hindustan Student Association (HSA) called for a hunger strike to protest against the increase in minimum lectures, to decrease minimum attendance requirements and to reduce the chairman's power.

According to TOI, the students wanted the requirement of minimum lectures in each subject to be reduced from 70 to 33 per cent.

Additionally, the students called for the minimum attendance in an academic session to be reduced to 70 per cent from 75 per cent, allegedly in accordance with the Bar Council rules.

According to the Indian Express the dispute appeared to have come to a head last Friday (8 January) over various issues, including graduate LLM programme reservations for Panjab University students and migration fees to move to the university campus.

An editorial published in TOI today asked whether "Chandigarh cops [are] scared of student leaders", having dropped charges against PUSU leaders who allegedly attempted murder and fired gun shots against a student from another local university last summer.

If all this is true, it sounds like a veritable warzone out in Punjab law school community.

Any thoughts as to what is going on?

And if any Panjab University students would like to elaborate, please get in touch with us. I for one would be interested in hearing the full story behind this.

Last year we also reported on the hunger strikes and four-year battle of students at Hidayatullah National Law University Raipur (HNLU). [SEE NOTE BELOW]

I have received a request from an HNLU student to clarify that the HNLU strikes were organised for a completely different reason and motivation from the Panjab University protests. I would therefore like to state for the record that the two are not directly related except for the fact that both involved hunger striking law students. Apologies for any confusion caused.