High Court orders Dhaka University to hold DUCSU election in 6 months

The High Court has ordered Dhaka University authorities to take steps to organise DUCSU elections in six months.

Justice Syed Muhammad Dastagir Husain and Justice Md Ataur Rahman Khan passed the order on Wednesday after disposing of a six-year-old rule.

Twenty-five students of Dhaka University filed a writ petition in 2012, seeking an order from the High Court for the authorities to take immediate steps to hold elections to the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union or DUCSU.

The last election to DUCSU was held in 1990.

The court issued a rule why the authorities’ failure to hold the polls should not be deemed illegal.

The education secretary and the registrar and the proctor of the university were made respondents.

On behalf of 31 students, a legal notice was served on the vice-chancellor, the proctor and the treasurer in 2012, but they remained silent. That prompted 25 students to file a writ petition with the High Court, said advocate Manzil Morshed, a lawyer for the petitioners.

The executive body of DUCSU is elected for one year. It may continue to operate, if no election is held in the following three months, according to a decision made at a meeting headed by former vice-chancellor Prof AK Azad Chowdhury in 1998.

The university authorities dissolved the 1990-91 DUCSU committee after the meeting.

Amanullah Aman from Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the student wing of the BNP, headed the body as vice-president while Khairul Kabir served as the general secretary.

No election to DUCSU took place ever since, which means there were no student representatives at the Dhaka University Senate.

On another petition in March last year, a High Court bench issued a rule why the authorities’ failure to hold the polls in the last 26 years should not be deemed illegal.

It ordered the defendants, including the education secretary, the DU vice-chancellor, the proctor and the registrar to reply in four weeks.