Law school principal barred for five years

A subcommittee of the University of Kerala Syndicate has found serious irregularities in the controversial Law Academy Law College here.
The first private law school in the southern state was found violating rules in the conduct of exams and holding government land beside harassing students using sexist and casteist language.
Following the report which found substance in almost every allegation of students, the Syndicate barred Lakshmi Nair, the principal of the five-decade-old institution, from conducting the University exams for five years.
Nair claims close links with the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) and hosts a popular cookery show on the party’s Kairali TV.
Her father, Narayanan Nair, continues as its founder-director.
The report observes that the institution with a long legacy has “come to this kind of a pathetic situation” and that it had unanimously concluded that it was “solely because of the maladministration” of Nair and that such an institution “should never have this kind of a downfall.”
It also recommends giving a “year-out” from college to her son’s fiancee, Anuradha Nair, found to have benefited from her awarding of internal marks.
The panel was formed to probe the allegations of students who are on an indefinite strike for almost a month demanding her removal as principal of the alma mater of many politicians and their children. The Students Federation of India (SFI), a feeder outfit of the CPI (M), also joined the strike later, putting the government in a tight corner.
Several leaders, including former chief minister VS Achuthanandan, leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala and Congress party’s president in the state VM Sudheeran, had visited them in solidarity.
Later, Chennithala sent a complaint to Governor P Sathasivam, who forwarded it to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and sought a report from the university’s vice-chancellor.
A statement from the Raj Bhavan said the petition seeks his intervention to solve issues that “paralysed the academic activities in that institution.”
Actor Suresh Gopi, a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India’s parliament, also visited protesters and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader V Muraleedharan who is on an indefinite hunger strike there pressing the demand.
The report gave them a strong ammunition, forcing CPI (M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who had earlier dismissed it as a local campus strike which doesn’t call for his intervention, to visit them.
However, he was cautious to strike a balance, without supporting the call for Nair’s resignation, and attacked political opponents for their “attempts to turn the strike against the government and the SFI.”
“Some anti-democratic groups are trying to hijack the strike. The government should be cautious about it and try to solve the issue amicably through talks,” he said.
“After all, it’s a private management (that runs the institute).”
The panel found students being driven to the brink of suicide not being able to withstand harassment by the authorities.
The students also submitted audio clippings of Nair scolding them using abusive language.
Some were forced to work at her hotel on the 12-acre campus built on the government land, and those who failed to enter her good books were even barred from taking exams while others got lavish marks in internal assessments.
It found the monthly attendance statements were not prepared, and valued answer sheets returned promptly.
“It is quite ironical that the students are insisted on signing the score sheet first, and marks are entered only later,” it says.
“The split up of marks awarded for various components of the internal marks are neither recorded nor published. On verification of the available records regarding attendance, the committee is convinced that there is an unholy interference of the college principal.”
The report says the “committee is fully convinced” that the power of awarding internal marks centred on the principal who “according to her whimsies and fancies awards marks freely to those whom she favours.”
Some 90 students, whose statements the panel recorded, complained of the principal using abusive and vulgar language, at times casteist and sexist.
“Students are criticised even for wearing dresses commonly used by girls in our country,” it says.
“The subcommittee has observed that the positioning of two (surveillance) cameras inside the women’s hostel (breaks their) privacy.
“The allegations that the sick students are thrown out or being threatened are found to be true.”
The principal, however, rejected all allegations.