A division bench of the high court on Thursday directed the state government to file an affidavit explaining the state’s role in conducting student union elections in state-aided colleges and universities, which have been stalled for many years now.

The bench of Justices Soumen Sen and Smita Das De was hearing a PIL that blamed the state government for the stalled student polls.

“File an affidavit by June 17 explaining the role of the state in the conduct of student elections in colleges and universities — whether the state can directly interfere,” Justice Sen told senior advocate Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, appearing for the government.

On June 6, 2017, the state government published a gazette notification stating that polls in colleges and universities would be held every two years. Apart from a handful of unitary universities, like Jadavpur, Presidency, and Rabindra Bharati, campus elections have not been conducted since.

In colleges, there have not been elections since a police officer on duty outside Harimohan Ghose College in Garden Reach was shot dead during a turf war between student groups over the filing of nominations in 2013.

Opposition leaders and a section of the critics of the ruling Trinamool dispensation have blamed the stalled student elections for the gang rape at South Calcutta Law College and the “general lawlessness” in colleges and universities across the state.

On Thursday, state counsel Bandyopadhyay blamed the absence of vice-chancellors in many institutes for the impasse. “Several universities do not have a VC. The elections cannot be conducted in the colleges under these universities. Names (of VC candidates) are sent to the governor. But there is no reply,” he said.

The counsel for the petitioner, Sabyasachi Chattopadhyay, countered Bandyopadhyay. “Why are elections not being held in colleges under universities that have VCs?” he asked.

He gave the example of medical institutions. “RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has its own rules for student elections. Why are polls stalled there?” he asked.

The state’s affidavit must include the names of colleges that are affiliated with universities that have vice-chancellors, the bench told Bandyopadhyay.

The affidavit has to be filed by July 17, when the matter will be heard next.

The PIL, filed last year, was first heard by a division bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam.

At the last hearing in March, the chief justice said the government has been issuing periodic notifications “keeping in abeyance all processes related to the students’ union election” in universities and affiliated colleges.

The lawyer for the state, Sirshanya Banerjee, had then said the government needed three months so they could incorporate some of the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee that were accepted by the Supreme Court in the rules notified in 2017.

PILs have since been transfer- red to the bench headed by Justice Sen.