The human resource development ministry on Monday called senior JNU officials to discuss Sunday’s large-scale campus violence, allegedly led by the ABVP, but vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar was absent.

Students and faculty have blamed the VC for the escalating tensions and violence, which led to two professors and 18 students being admitted to the AIIMS trauma centre.

Ministry secretary Amit Khare chaired Monday’s meeting, attended by pro-vice-chancellor Chintamani Mahapatra, registrar Pramod Kumar, rector III Rana Pratap Singh and proctor Dhananjay Singh.

A senior ministry official claimed the VC had not been invited to the meeting, saying: “We generally discuss the university’s affairs with the registrar.”

University officials and some teachers said the VC tended not to bother attending meetings called by the government because he had RSS backing. Some university sources said Kumar was busy with Monday’s teacher selection interviews.

Masked goons led by the ABVP had run amok with sticks and rods for hours on the campus on Sunday, attacking students who have been resisting registrations for the next semester in protest at a hostel fee hike, teachers have said.

The vice-chancellor and the agitating students had been at loggerheads over the hostel fee hike, with Kumar refusing to roll it back.

A former HRD ministry bureaucrat remembered an informal discussion of JNU affairs by government officials where an RSS representative had defended Kumar against charges of biased teacher selection.

“When rule violations in faculty selection at JNU were cited, the RSS representative (dismissively) said many such instances had happened in the past too,” the former official said.

“He cited the examples of (JNU) departments like the Centre for Study of Regional Development, which is known for in-breeding. Most teachers there are the centre’s ex-students. The RSS member said that when Left groups appointed their own people, nobody objected — so Kumar was doing nothing wrong.”

Ministry officials said Monday’s meeting lasted half an hour, with the JNU administration briefing the ministry on Sunday’s violence, which has attracted nationwide condemnation, even from several BJP ministers. The ABVP says the violence was perpetrated on its members by Leftist student bodies.

At the meeting, the university submitted a one-page note. The ministry tweeted about the meeting but did not reveal the outcome. Officials said the ministry would not intervene in the matter for now. Home minister Amit Shah had on Sunday night ordered an inquiry.

University sources said the registration process, affected amid the protests, might be reopened in the next few days.

Sources said the JNU authorities had told the ministry that the university was no longer imposing the newly introduced utility and service charges on the students, implying a partial rollback of the fee hike. But former JNU students’ union president N. Sai Balaji contested the claim.

“The university has not dropped the utility and service charges. Any change to the fee structure requires the executive council’s approval or the issuance of an ordinance. Neither has happened,” Balaji said.

Kumar did not answer calls or text messages.

The JNU has extended the date for the semester registration process till Sunday since the servers have not been restored yet.

Several teachers said the Inter Hall Administration’s approval for the steep fee hike had lacked transparency, with the scheduled meeting being first cancelled and then suddenly reconvened at an hour’s notice after the student representatives had left.

A faculty member said: “The vice-chancellor is consistently avoiding discussions with the students. He must take the initiative to address the issue.”

During their two-month-old agitation against the fee hike, the students had gheraoed HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal at the office of the All India Council of Technical Education in November. Kumar, who was present, did not meet the students even though the minister did.

Pokhriyal was in Bhubaneswar on Monday to attend a seminar. He told reporters that educational institutions cannot be allowed to become dens of politics.

“I have said this earlier also that these autonomous institutions cannot be allowed to become political ‘addas’. Strong action will be initiated against people involved in the attack,” he said.

Many of the leaders of contemporary Indian politics have come up through student politics. Among them are Sitaram Yechury (CPM), Nitish Kumar (JDU), Lalu Prasad (RJD), Ravi Shankar Prasad and Nirmala Sitharaman (both BJP).