Fourteen Jawaharlal Nehru University students, including three office-bearers of its students’ union, were granted bail in a case lodged against them for confronting police who had blocked the campus gate on Thursday to prevent them from marching to the education ministry.

The students, however, will not be released just yet as stringent bail conditions have been set.

The campus has been on the boil this month after Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) office-bearers were rusticated last year for protesting the implementation of the UGC guidelines against caste discrimination. The JNUSU has boycotted classes since then.

The Supreme Court shelved the guidelines after the BJP found itself in the glare of upper caste groups. A podcast by vice-chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit criticising the guidelines added fuel to the fire at JNU, prompting a march to her residence by the union members that ended in a clash with the RSS-backed ABVP, which has not opposed the guidelines.

The JNUSU accused ABVP members of hurling stones at the rally and the latter accused the Left-led union of targeting students who refused to join. On Thursday, JNUSU members tried to march to the ministry, around 10km away, a form of protest prohibited by the police since 2019. Students partially breached the barricades and got into scuffles with the police, who detained 51.

On Friday, 14 students, including CPIML (Liberation)-backed AISA national president Neha Bora, JNUSU president Aditi Mishra of AISA, vice-president K. Gopika Babu of the SFI, and joint secretary Danish Ali of AISA — all four women — were produced in court. They were granted bail on bonds of ₹25,000 and sureties of the same amount, but will remain in Tihar jail as of now.

The JNUSU said: “The 14 students granted bail by judge Animesh Kumar have been given stringent bail conditions where they will only be released upon the verification of their permanent address. Numerous requests were made to the magistrate judge to consider other pleas, like allowing the students to appear before the IO every day till the permanent addresses are verified, so that the liberty granted is not lost. However, no such appeal was entertained, leaving the ordered liberty on paper but jail in reality.”