The first question posed to Harsh Lamba, the SU General Secretary, was regarding when and for what reason he had returned to campus. Lamba replied that he had returned in the last week of August, to aid in the reopening of campus, and help the administration with ‘a lot of things, room allocation, and stuff.’ ‘Stuff’, he elaborated, included the work involved in tracking the trunks students had left behind on campus and sending them from the hostels to Anirudh TK, a member of the CRC, who would then send them for repair, or to a different hostel. He added that he also had to list and tally all the empty rooms, and conduct some setup for SU initiatives such as reopening Looters. He also had to check what maintenance was needed of the hostels and NAB, and offer the students’ ‘perspective’ regarding the same.
On being asked, he clarified that he and Harsh Shukla, SU President, were the first students to return to campus. He could not remember the exact dates of their arrival and despite being asked, did not confirm whether the Chief Warden’s official announcement about the campus reopening had come before or after they had reached campus. He said that there was a lot of work to do with the trunk counting, as some internal reports had come of trunks being ‘taken up here or there’. He said that around August 3, he, Shukla, and Anirudh TK had come to campus to help with the trunk situation. On further questioning, he said that this was the ‘first cycle’ for which they stayed on campus for ten to fourteen days. They then went home and returned again at the end of August. He also said that during the ‘first cycle’, they were in regular—but not daily—contact with the Chief Warden.
He elaborated on the trunk moving work, saying that in early August they had been involved in the trunk counting process, as there were discrepancies in the number of trunks being reported. At this stage, they were getting them repaired and moved from one hostel to the other. We asked him why student volunteers were needed to do this work, when there was staff who could have done it under the SU’s direction. He responded that they were necessary as they could do it from the ‘students’ perspective’.
Lamba stated that the SSMS approached the SU saying that they would be calling some volunteers to campus, and asked for suggestions from them as to who should be called. He clarified that this was not via email, saying, ‘officially, only a person communicated this with us’. He could not answer whether the decision was made in an SSMS GC meet. Further, he said that it was the SSMS President who had contacted the SU regarding this. The EPC assumed that the volunteers would be doing primarily SSMS work. Lamba said, ‘There was no primary responsibility,’ and stated that they had to do both SU and SSMS work.
When asked, Lamba corroborated that the idea of calling volunteers was approved by the Chief Warden, but not suggested by him. The next question posed to him was what criteria had been used to choose these volunteers and why they were all people unaffiliated with the SSMS, rather than existing members of the SSMS or AMC. He responded that it was a ‘hasty decision’ and he did not know about the internal workings of the SSMS. He went on to describe their responsibilities, including moving trunks, maintaining COVID protocols, and maintenance work. He added that they had to look at these things and provide the students’ perspective, and had been assigned various eateries and locations to audit.
He was asked to tell us what criteria was used to choose the volunteers. Lamba stated that alongside the 2019 Batch Representatives, the SU had mostly recommended volunteers who they had prior experience working with for various SU initiatives, saying, ‘It was our judgement to take a call’. He refused to get into the specifics as to what metric was used when choosing them, particularly the volunteers who did not have prior experience with the SU, and instead simply stated that it was a hasty decision made after discussion between himself, Shukla, and the President of the SSMS. When asked why the GBM had not been made aware of the volunteer situation, Lamba apologised for not informing the GBM, attributing the lapse of judgement to the hastiness of the decision. He was further questioned on why a root mail had not been sent to the GBM declaring the names of the volunteers who had been called, considering that the SU was aware of the fact that the GBM should have been notified. Lamba had no further response to this and reiterated that it was a hasty decision. Finally, the EPC inquired what work the ten volunteers had aside from the responses already provided, to which he did not have anything to add.
The next topic of discussion was the SAC Amphitheatre incident. The EPC asked Lamba why the SAC was open, why multiple people were present, and what exactly was meant to be happening there. He said that there was supposed to be an SU meeting, which did not occur as they failed to meet the required quorum. After this meeting, there was a ‘personal event’ organised by him. He apologised for using the SAC for decoration, and added that he had apologised to the authorities as well. He lamented the harm it has caused to his reputation, saying, ‘It was a fairly…it was supposed to be a harmless event but it got publicised. And because of that publicity, a lot of damage has been done.’ He was asked about the code of conduct in place regarding the number of people allowed to gather in a public location like the SAC. Lamba said that the meeting could not have been held in the SU office, as even with just seven or eight people, it would have become congested and they would not have met COVID protocols. He added that the personal event was not meant to gather an audience, and that it just happened to get publicised as it was in an open place. When asked about the timings of these events, Lamba said that the meeting had been scheduled for around 4:30–5:00 PM, and the personal event took place around 8:30 or 9:00 PM. Lamba told the EPC that the volunteers were not available to achieve the quorum as they had various club commitments and other work which prevented them from joining.
The next questions were about the booking of the SAC and the scheduling of these events. Lamba said that the SAC had been booked for about an hour starting from 4:30 PM for the SU meeting. The personal event and decoration for the same was done after that. Lamba stated that he did that in his personal capacity and not as the General Secretary of the SU, and that he had apologised for it multiple times.
Lamba did not know the number of people who attended his ‘personal event’, saying, ‘During the personal event, no one was supposed to be there. No one was invited. Random people came out of nowhere. I don’t know why it happened.’ He had no estimation of the number of people there, saying, ‘I am aware ki mein tha, there was one other person, and I’m not aware ki aur kaun tha kaun nahi tha.’ (‘I am aware that I was there, there was one other person, and I am not aware who else was or wasn’t there.’)
The last topic talked about was Lamba’s suspension. The EPC asked him to provide the rationale behind it when he clearly had apologised to all the authorities for having conducted his personal event. ‘Our motto primarily was that SU will always be accountable, and will always be transparent. And to hold the same spirit to not be very hypocritical. I was suspended, I was given corrective measures, or whatever thing, whatever decisions I took, I took them on, in my personal capacity.’ Lamba said. He stated that being in the position of General Secretary, he deserved the corrective measures prescribed to him, since his incident became public and disgraced the office. He added that he had voluntarily accepted his punishment. Additionally, he claimed to be unaware of the email regarding impeachment that had been floated by the Election Commission (EC).
When asked which violation of code had been cited as the reason for suspension, Lamba said that it was his use of the SAC for personal use without permission. He added that the final decision regarding his indefinite suspension would be taken in the next GBM meeting, which would be scheduled by the Union Council (UC), saying, ‘It’s not in my hands anymore. It’s upon UC.’ He affirmed that as a member of the SU and UC in general, he knew that this meeting would occur within the next week. He also confirmed that he had spoken to the Chief Warden and Director after his suspension, but was unaware whether any disciplinary council meeting would be taking place. When asked about the fairness of his punishment, Lamba repeated that he had voluntarily accepted it as his actions had brought disgrace to the SU. He clarified that there were no ‘corrective measures’ aside from the suspension.
The interview with Lamba ended with him restating that the SU was transparent and accountable, and his punishment was an example of that. ‘There have been a lot of… means, a lot of misogynistic things are being said, in a lot of groups. There is a… there’s a group of certain people who are trying to defame people in a very wrong sense. I think that should be stopped. That’s not what BITSians stand for. I made a mistake. I accepted it.’ he said. He urged the students to keep supporting the SU, as they are doing a lot of work for the student body, and added that discussions were being held regarding increasing transparency.