Efforts to broker peace between the University of Kerala authorities and agitating research scholars suffered a setback with the latter staying away from a crucial meeting on Thursday.
The decision to keep away from the meeting, taken only a few minutes before its scheduled time, virtually put on hold recent efforts that were made to arrive at a mutually-agreeable resolution. The meeting was scheduled to be convened by Pro Vice-Chancellor (PVC) N. Veeramanikandan in the presence of Syndicate members, the suspended students as well as State and district leaders of the Students’ Federation of India, which has been spearheading the ongoing agitation.
The agitators held the view that a discussion chaired by the PVC was unlikely to yield any positive result.
“A meeting that is held in the absence of the Vice Chancellor would turn out to be a mere formality and nothing more. His reluctance in calling us for talks has proved his lack of interest in resolving the issue,” Senate member P. Manesh, one of the suspended students, said.
Legal notice
Meanwhile, SFI Karyavattom campus unit president Manesh and secretary V.V. Ajesh were served a legal notice by Vice Chancellor P.K. Radhakrishnan, for allegedly making a defamatory statement that was ‘disparaging and derogatory’ in nature.
They have been accused of making false allegations against the Vice Chancellor regarding purported alteration of the minutes of a Syndicate meeting and having committed criminal offence.
The statement in this regard that had been issued by the SFI leaders appeared in a Malayalam daily a few days ago.
Compensation
In addition to paying a compensation of Rs. 10 lakh, the respondents have been asked to publish a written apology in the daily within 15 days.
They have been cautioned that legal action would be initiated against them if they failed to comply with the directive.
