A STUDENT who is studying post graduation in Law from Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU) has sent a legal notice to university for damage to his study material and other necessary items dumped in hostel during pandemic. The student, Adv Sagar Chavan, a resident of Gondia district has completed LL B from RTMNU and took admission for LLM first year in academic session 2019-20 in Post Graduate Teaching Department of Law. Accordingly he was allotted hostel room.With beginning of pandemic in March, the lockdown was announced from March 22. The colleges, schools everything stopped functioning.

 

Obviously students in hostel locked their rooms and returned homes. Around May, the then Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe had acquired several Government-owned properties to be used as quarantine centres or COVID-19 care centre. In May, he asked University bosses to handover the students’ hostel to Nagpur Municipal Corporation. University started the procedure of vacating the hostel. According to Adv Chavan, the students were not informed by the authorities about the procedure of vacating the hostel. “When we left hostel, it was not a Covid Centre. Later on as per the orders of Mundhe, the hostel was converted into Covid Centre. We were not informed about our property by the university. Had university been informed us we would have taken our material to our homes.”

 

After the ease in lockdown, some students requested university to return their material for which university agreed and cooperated with students. “When we reached hostel and saw the condition of our material, we were shocked. There was wetness in the rooms where the material of students was dumped. The bed, bedsheet, books all were destroyed, making it difficult for us to take those with us,” pointed out Adv Chavan. According to Adv Chavan, he tried to speak with the university officers but nobody paid attention to him. Finally, he sent a legal notice addressed to Hostel Warden and copy to the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and Higher and Technical Education Minister urging them to give him compensation against the damage. “The lockdown was imposed in March, we went home. The hostel was converted into Covid Centre in May then we were not aware of it. Our material was dumped in two rooms. We were worried about our material but couldn’t come due to lockdown. There are other students also but most of them are supposed to take the facility so them kept mum,” Adv Chavan made it clear.