The MS University Syndicate on Tuesday rejected an “appeal” by student of Master of Visual Arts from the Faculty Fine Arts, Kundan Kumar Mahato, to reconsider decision to debar him over a controversy on his artwork on May 5.
Kundan had filed an appeal before the Vice-Chancellor to reconsider the decision as per the provisions of the rules of the MSU Act.
On Tuesday, the MSU Syndicate met and decided to reject Kundan’s appeal, upholding the May 13 decision to rusticate him, a native of Bihar. Vice-Chancellor VK Shrivastava declined to comment on the matter and Registrar Krishnakumar Chudasma was unavailable, a syndicate member said the decision was “unanimous”.
Kundan’s advocate Hitesh Gupta said, “The appeal before the university was to reconsider its decision as per the provisions of the rules of the MSU Act because the process to rusticate a student as laid down by the rule book was not followed in this case… Kundan has been denied justice as he was not even given a hearing.. We will move the High Court for relief.”
On June 29, the university generated an examination hall ticket terming him as “eligible” but he was prohibited from attending the physical examination for the Philosophy of Art-II paper.
Kundan, a first year student of Sculpture of Master of Visual Arts has received support from former alumnus and former teacher at the Faculty and noted artist Jyotindra Bhatt (Jyoti), who in a letter addressed to the V-C, had said that he has been “pained” at the sequence of events, and in his opinion, Kundan’s artwork is “neither obscene nor disrespectful”.
The Sayajigunj police booked Mahato on May 9 based on the complaint of Jaswantsinh Raulji, a second-year student of the Faculty of Arts—a different campus—for allegedly creating artwork of “objectionable” pictures of gods and goddesses. Right-wing groups protested saying it “hurt religious sentiments” and led to clashes on the campus on May 5.
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