JNUSU Polls 2025: Supreme Court Rejects Plea on Nomination Rejection

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea by a student challenging the rejection of her nomination to contest the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union elections on April 25. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta refused to "interfere with the regulation" that bars candidates above the age of 25 from contesting the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) elections.

The bench had initially asked the student's counsel to approach the Delhi High Court, but later heard and dismissed the plea. Citing the JM Lyngdoh Committee guidelines, first-year postgraduate student Ritu Anubha C claimed that JNU was bound to hold student union elections within six to seven weeks of the commencement of the academic session. The student's counsel said that if the JNU administration had held the elections in September, as is usually done, she would have been eligible to contest the elections.

The counsel said that now that she is a little over 25 years old, her nomination papers were rejected despite no fault of hers. "JNUSU elections are held every year in September," the lawyer said. However, the bench said, "During Covid-19, elections were not held in many universities. Does this mean that people of older age can seek the right to contest elections later... dismissed."

The JNUSU elections are scheduled for April 25 and JNU has received 250 nominations for the post of school counsellor and 165 nominations for the four central panel posts of JNUSU. Voting will be held in two phases - from 9 am to 1 pm and from 2.30 pm to 5.30 pm - with counting starting at 9 pm on the same day. The results are expected by April 28.