The high court ordered on Friday that the Jadavpur University hostels must remain closed till the end of the Durga Puja vacation.
A division bench of Justice Sujoy Pal and Justice Smita Das De asked police to ensure no hostel was unlocked during the holidays.
The university will reopen on October 9.
“We deem it proper to direct that during the period when Jadavpur University is closed because of Puja vacation, the hostel should also remain closed, and no persons should be permitted to reside in the hostel,” the order said.
“It shall be the duty of the Registrar (Acting) and the pro-vice-chancellor to ensure that each and every hostel is locked within 48 hours from today (Friday), and the officer in charge of Jadavpur police station shall personally inspect every hostel within 48 hours... and submit a report before this court whether hostels are locked or not...,” it said.
The court was hearing a petition on safety and security on the campus filed after education minister Bratya Basu was harassed and heckled on the campus by a section of students on March 1.
Safety and security concerns resurfaced when a third-year English honours student recently drowned in an unfenced water body on the campus.
The order came after the petitioner’s lawyer told the court that “outsiders” occupy the JU hostels during Puja vacation.
The court said it would be the duty of the university to ensure that outsiders do not enter the campus, and for that, if they need to, “they can seek police assistance from Jadavpur Police Station”.
The entry of unauthorised persons to the hostel has been a recurrent problem for JU.
The problem came to the fore when a first-year undergraduate student died
after being allegedly ragged at the university’s main hostel in August 2023.
Sourabh Chowdhury, a former student at JU who had been arrested on August 12, 2023, in connection with the death of the first-year student, had cleared his master’s in mathematics in 2022 but had stayed on in the main hostel.
A dozen JU students, past and present, are still in custody in connection with the case.
The court said on Friday that once the campus reopened on October 9, the university authorities and the police will hold a meeting to finalise the installation of CCTV cameras on the campus.
“We deem it proper to direct the state and the university to sit together in a meeting to resolve the problem.... Therefore, as agreed, there shall be a meeting on
15th October, 2025, at Nabanna at 2pm,” the order says.
A meeting of the university’s executive council on August 11 resolved that 70 CCTV cameras would be installed on the Jadavpur and Salt Lake campuses.