The Jadavpur University authorities will write to the West Bengal government's higher education department urging it to convene a tripartite meeting for early election of student unions, an official said on Wednesday.

Student union elections have not taken place in any of the state-run universities in the past few years. Various student bodies have been demanding that the polls be held as soon as possible.

Tamalina, a member of the JU SFI unit, said the students union representatives met the Vice Chancellor, and other senior officials on July 23 demanding that the university authorities take up the issue urgently.

She told PTI: "The university authorities have promised to send the mail to the higher education department by today. How long will the students be deprived of electing their own representatives? Pointing out that the university cannot unilaterally take any decision about holding students union polls, Officiating Vice-Chancellor Bhaskar Gupta said, "We are writing to the higher education department very soon. The students had raised the same issue in the past. Different student bodies including SFI had voiced the same demand. But only the state government can take a call on the issue." All stakeholders of the university want the democratic rights of the students to be safeguarded, Gupta told PTI.

Head of the Department of English, Manojit Mondal, said, "I think the government is also in favour of holding student union polls at JU and taking measures to facilitate this at the earliest." Students union elections to all state-run, state-aided higher educational institutions could not be held for past five years which was preceded by clashes at college and university campuses and the government said elections will again be held after the general elections. However, the student union polls have been deferred ever since.

State Education Minister Bratya Basu recently said the process of starting students union elections will commence after the Durga Puja festival.

Listing another key demand, the SFI and Arts Faculty Student's Union regretted that despite the decision of the Executive Council, the process of issuing show-cause notices to 25 inmates of the boys' hostel, accused of ragging and torturing a student, is getting delayed.

Minutes after the alleged ragging, the student fell from a top-floor balcony of the hostel and died hours later at a hospital on August 10 last morning..

"We have told the VC the delay in issuing show cause is delaying the process of delivering justice to the kin of the deceased. As per standard procedure, the showcaused person has to reply to the letter and the authorities take resultant follow-up action later on. The authorities said the letter is in the process of being drafted and will be mailed to the accused soon. But we need a time frame," she said.

The Officiating VC said, "We are drafting the letter seeking opinions of legal experts to make it foolproof. We also want justice for the bereaved family." The last EC meeting of the university accepted the anti-ragging committee's report recommending that 25 hostel residents be expelled from hostels permanently and barred from one semester.

The meeting had also decided to allow the 25 students the right to defend themselves.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.