EC 2019:
The first question asked was about the action taken against the General Secretary, Harsh Lamba. The EC clarified that the decision to suspend the General Secretary had been made solely by the Union Council based on ‘what they felt would be a corrective measure given how the events had unfolded.’ They added that the UC had had discussions with the Administration and they had concluded that ‘resignation and impeachment was not feasible given the logistical challenges of a re-election.’
The EC specified that the SU President, Harsh Shukla had approached the EC to ask them whether Lamba’s suspension would ‘violate a specific clause in the Constitution’ as the EC has the power to interpret the Constitution. On CRC’s role in this matter, the EC stated ‘The CRC is the sole authority on interpreting the financial sections of the Constitution. So, they had the deciding power with regards to the delegation of responsibilities post the suspension with regards to the financial sections only.’
Elaborating on the timeline, the EC said that on September 14, ‘the President consulted the EC with regards to a decision on the suspension clause,’ to which the EC had told him that ‘there was no precedent on the issue,’ and therefore an ad hoc document had to be prepared. The EC had then drafted the document after consultation with the CRC on the 14th and 15th, stating that they ‘discussed the document with the President on the 15th, and then he ‘sent out the notice regarding the suspension on the very same day.’ The EC had also discussed it with the Chief Warden, who had been on board with it.
The EC were questioned about why the ad hoc document was released five days after the notice for the General Secretary’s suspension had been released. They replied that although ‘the document had already been shared with the Chief Warden as well as the Student Union,’ they had been waiting for the President to first release the notice of the UC-GBM meet, which he did on the 20th, after which they immediately released the document.
The SU President had invoked Section J, Clause 4 of the Constitution to speak on behalf of the Union without prior consultation with the Council. The clause reads ‘S/he shall have the power to speak on behalf of the Union with any authority without prior consultation with other members of the Council; if urgency is warranted by the circumstances. However, the results of such meetings shall have to be ratified by at least one-third of the Council members present within a maximum of one week.’ He had used this power to suspend the General Secretary. Any decision taken through this clause has to be ratified by a simple majority of the Council within a week. The EC explained that J-4 was applicable in this situation because of growing pressure from the Administration and the GBM to take action against the General Secretary.
When asked about why the suspension itself is constitutionally valid, they answered ‘the fact that there is no precedent for suspension in the Constitution is why we came up with the ad hoc document in the first place.’
On whether the ad hoc document gave the UC power to suspend the General Secretary, the EC stated that ‘the UC is empowered to take any decision which is in the benefit of the GBM and by extension we believe that they should be empowered to take such a decision.’ In response to this point, the EPC brought up Section C, Clause 3 which says that any decision which is taken by the UC has to be in accordance with all the clauses. The EC was asked whether they had deemed the suspension to be in accordance with all the other clauses, to which they replied that to the best of their knowledge and abilities, they had. ‘The suspension does not find a mention in the SU Constitution, but a decision has to be taken to protect the students of the GBM by fair means available,’ the EC remarked. They concluded by saying that their decisions had been made based on the ‘spirit of the Preamble of the Constitution’.
The EC confirmed that there are two sections in the Constitution that deal with the removal of a UC member from office: Section T for removal from office through a vote of no confidence and Section W for flagrant violations, which also occurs through a vote of no confidence.
Regarding the impeachment through the GBM, the EC explained that the GBM had been demanding clear guidelines on the process. Several forms had also been ‘circulated online which did not adhere to the guidelines and protocols’ laid down by the EC, and hence their authenticity could not be verified. They mentioned that ‘we did not receive a request from anyone from the GBM to initiate a formal impeachment process.’
Section T of the constitution, Clause A, Sub-clause 1 states that a vote of no confidence can either be initiated by one-third of the majority of the concerned electorate or two-thirds of the entire elected UC and they shall have to submit a signed memorandum to this effect to the EC. When questioned whether the latter process was considered, the EC said that they ‘did not receive any communication from the UC’ regarding taking this route, and hence it had not been considered, despite being constitutionally valid.
The EC was then asked if they had ensured that the UC knew that they could initiate a vote of no confidence within themselves, thus avoiding the addition of a new provision. The EC replied that they are an impartial body and that it was not their job to advise the President or UC on any matters related to impeachment or resignation. As no member of the GBM or the UC had approached the EC looking to initiate impeachment, further consideration was not given to this path. They added that their role was to analyse ‘whether or not a specific decision violated a specific clause in the Constitution.’
On the topic of whether there was any provision in the Constitution which gave the EC power to create an ad hoc document, they said that the EC carried the ‘right to interpret the constitution’ and that the ad hoc document was based on an interpretation of the constitution by the EC with the ‘exceptions of the financial sections which were interpreted by the CRC’. Members of the 2018 batch—who were available in an advisory capacity—were also consulted over phone, but they could not unfortunately reach all three members since they [the members] had commitments of their own.’
According to the EC, a review meet has to be held to initiate a formal amendment to the Constitution. This meet is ‘traditionally held every three years,’ based on which the EC makes amendments to the Constitution. These amendments would ‘have to be passed in a UC meet with two-thirds majority, given that two-thirds of the GBM vote,’ the EC stated. They added that the ad hoc document would be a ‘temporary measure’ and would not be part of any amendment to the Constitution. Hence, in case of a similar situation occurring in the future, the EC would have to re-evaluate the situation.
When questioned about whether the suspension of the General Secretary could be revoked, the EC answered that a simple majority vote was required to be taken by the UC in order to do this. The constitution requires one-third of the body to ratify the motion, however, in this specific instance the EC chose to keep a simple majority threshold to avoid misuse of power. Regarding the SSMS volunteers, the EC informed us that they had had no role in their selection or operation. They had not been consulted before the formation of the ‘SSMS Volunteer’ post and they currently possessed the same amount of information as any member of the general body. On being asked about the EC volunteer on campus, the EC asserted that they were on campus strictly as a SSMS volunteer.
Harsh Yadav (EC 2018):
The interview began by asking Harsh about a 2018 EC advisor currently on campus. He denied any rumours about an EC advisor working informally for EC while on campus. He said that since another 2018 EC member ‘is going to campus anyway’, they do not need an additional volunteer. He added that any action taken by said 2018 EC advisor regarding this situation had been taken by the person independently. Denying rumours of election rigging, he said that the CW had had sole control over all form-related proceedings. Election favours were also effectively out of question because the EC was neither motivated to lend favours nor in a position to do so, considering the limited extent of its influence.
Next, he was asked for the EC’s views on impeachment and the General Secretary. He explained that unrest had been building within the GBM about issues with the trunks, the SSMS volunteers, and the SAC video. This had led to people talking about impeaching the General Secretary and asking the EC about the impeachment procedure. In response to this, they had released the impeachment guidelines on their website. They had also contacted the owners of the Google forms that had been circulating on WhatsApp groups and had had them taken down.
Harsh then mentioned the in-person meeting between the Chief Warden, the Director, the General Secretary, and the President. ‘This was a second person account’, he clarified, referring to a 2018 EC advisor, ‘The Chief Warden wanted some action on [sic] the General Secretary and he was asking him to resign. And the GenSec refused to resign, even though the Director and the Chief Warden asked him multiple times over a period of two days. And then, because the Chief Warden was like obviously some action needs to be taken. And so the President committed to him that he will get the GenSec suspended.’
Elaborating on the official justification of this move, he opined that ‘The thing is, that the Chief Warden felt that impeachment would not happen, because that number of people don’t vote, even in the elections, so impeachment won’t happen. And because of that, and he also thought that maybe impeachment or like getting him to resign might be a bit too harsh. Like he thought, okay, something like proposing someone is a bit normal. So it’s just the circumstances in which it happened that had a lot of consequences, right? So that’s the official thing, which is why they went with the suspension.’
Harsh’s opinion is that this punishment is merely a gimmick, and the General Secretary will be reinstated soon, which would mean he effectively escaped punishment. He also explained that this was a PR issue for the institution.
Next, Harsh was asked about the codes violated by the General Secretary that led to his suspension. He said that this situation had simply been a gross misuse of power on the part of not only the General Secretary, but also the President in the calling of the volunteers and the conduction of the event at SAC.
When asked about his personal thoughts on Section J, Clause 4 of the Constitution, he talked about how it was unusual that the President—and the Union by extension—possessed the power to suspend a member of the UC. In his opinion, the power that comes with this clause should have a boundary, and he seemed apprehensive about other such loopholes in the Constitution.
The EC had mentioned in their interview that the ad hoc document currently being prepared jointly by the EC and the CRC to deal with the General Secretary situation might not be added to the Constitution. When asked about this, Harsh said that ‘if we forget the morality of the situation,’ using J-4 to suspend the General Secretary had been the only possible solution. In his opinion, a separate procedure needs to be established for the ‘corner case’ where a President needs to use their discretion.