St Stephen's Principal Suspends Students' Magazine for Not Seeking Clearance

On a day the Supreme Court struck down the Section 66A of IT Act for impinging on freedom of speech, the Principal of Delhi's prestigious St Stephen's College suspended a student-run e-magazine for not seeking his clearance on content. A one-man committee has been appointed to look into the matter, which the college says, was a breach of discipline.

The weekly e-zine, started by a group of Stephanians, had gone live on March 7. It registered over 2,000 hits on an interview of the Principal, Mr Valson Thampu. But the Principal banned the magazine for not taking his clearance for publishing the interview.

The email from Mr Thampu which suspended the publication, said, "It is unacceptable that, despite being explicitly told not to publish anything (especially my interview) before I had the time to go through and clear the text) you went ahead in defiance. It denotes an awkward failure of education and that is why I cannot take it lightly."

"He was happy with his interview. We mailed him a transcript but he didn't reply. So we didn't delay the publication," said Devansh Mehta, a philosophy student and the editor and co-founder of St Stephen's Weekly. "There was nothing inflammatory in the interview. How can this be the best liberal arts college in the country if we don't have the right to speak our minds?"

His group, Mr Mehta said, had checked with the Principal before launching the magazine. "But the matter became an issue of editorial control for the Principal, who appointed himself as staff adviser," he said.

"He (the Principal) had the right to see the interview and students could have waited before they put it up," said Nandita Narayan, a member of the Mathematics Faculty. "I don't think there is any breach of discipline in this. This tendency to ban and vanish is not appropriate in a democracy and in an educational institute."

Mr Thampu was unavailable for comment. According to news agency Press Trust of India, SR Ayde, who has been appointed the one-man committee, said it was a "serious case of breach of discipline".