Cuttack: Uncertainty over students' election at Ravenshaw University continues with the authorities still undecided over holding it after indefinitely suspending polls last year.

The authorities are in a bind owing to their inability to decide whether direct students' elections should be replaced by indirect elections. An official source said the higher education department had decided to conclude students' union polls before Dusshera with October 12 as the likely date for the elections. However, the dates are yet to be officially announced.

Vice-chancellor Ishan Patro told The Telegraph on Sunday that "a decision can be taken only after a recommendation from the varsity's executive council".

The varsity had planned to do away with direct elections and replace a single apex body - the students' union - with students' councils for each of the nine schools consisting of 34 departments.

But the move hit a roadblock with a combined front of students' organisations successfully stalling the students council elections, forcing the university to indefinitely defer it in August last year and refer the matter to the executive council.

In October 2017, the executive council constituted a sub-committee "to suggest future course of action without giving any deadline to it to submit its report," Patro said.

"But the sub-committee is yet to come up with its report," he said.

Official sources said the sub-committee includes the varsity's council of deans chairman, Gauranga Nanda, and two nominees of the chancellor (governor) in the executive council Purna Chandra Panigrahi and Bijaya Mishra.

The sub-committee is expected to recommend whether direct students' elections should be replaced by indirect elections taking into consideration the legality of the options, especially the alternative model which the university had proposed to adopt, the sources said.

Chittaranjan Mohanty, president of Ravenshaw Bikash Abhijan, which includes socio-political activists and former student leaders, said: "There is nothing to be indecisive about over the issue as the Supreme Court had endorsed the recommendation of the Lyngdoh Committee for a system of direct elections of the office bearers of the student body under which all students of the university departments vote directly for office bearers."

"The committee had made recommendations and the Supreme Court, while approving it, had in its order on September 22, 2006 directed that those recommendations should thereafter be followed scrupulously by all the Universities across the country," Mohanty said.