Telangana HC dismisses plea against OU's refusal of permission for Rahul Gandhi event

HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition challenging the Osmania University (OU) refusing permission for holding an interactive session of students with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on the OU campus on May 7. Congress workers and others had challenged the rejection of their application by Osmania University for permission to hold the interactive session.

Following the OU authorities' decision, research scholar and Congress party spokesperson Manavatha Roy, who was one of the applicants for Gandhi's proposed meeting on the campus along with some students of the Osmania University approached the High Court challenging rejection of their application.

Upholding OU's decision, Justice B Vijayasen Reddy of the Telangana High Court dismissed the petition. Earlier, OU had denied permission for the event due to various reasons, including citing its Executive Council passing a resolution last year not to allow any political activity on the campus. Also, the election of some employees unions have been scheduled, examinations for certain courses were underway and a section of students are also preparing for recruitment tests recently announced by the state government, an official of OU had said.

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Some student organisations of the university also represented to them opposing the meeting due to which there is a chance of law and order problem on the campus and in view of these, it is not feasible for the university to accord permission for the meeting, a letter written by OU Registrar to Roy, said. The petitioners had submitted that Gandhi wants to meet the OU students as well as unemployed youth for the purpose of nation-building and that there is no chance of any law and order problems. It would purely be a meeting of students and interaction and there were no political motives behind the proposed interaction, they submitted.

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