Jadavpur University on Tuesday issued show-cause letters to the students who have been found guilty of ragging a first-year undergraduate student by its anti-ragging committee.

JU registrar Snehamanju Basu said the students were given 15 days, starting Tuesday, to respond to the letter.

“The students have been asked to explain why the university won’t punish them in keeping with the committee’s recommendations,” said a JU official. “The university would decide the quantum of punishment to be awarded after going through the responses.”

The office of the dean of students will hand over the letters to the students through hostel superintendents.

Senior students allegedly threw the 17-year-old first-year student from the second-floor balcony of the main hostel on August 9, 2023. He died early on August 10.

The recommendations of the anti-ragging committee, which Metro has seen, say five residents of the main hostel who were allegedly at the scene of the crime “may be rusticated for four semesters and expelled from JU hostels permanently”.

The committee has recommended that 25 hostel residents be rusticated from the university for one semester and expelled from hostels permanently as they were “directly associated with abetment to ragging”.

The university has failed to act against the errant students in one whole year.

The university started issuing the show-cause letters two days after education minister Bratya Basu said he would speak to the authorities on why no action had yet been taken against those found responsible for ragging in the internal probe.

A JU official said the chairperson of an internal committee submitted all the documents related to the deposition of all hostel residents, including those implicated, to the VC on Monday.

JU constituted the internal committee on August 10, 2023, to probe the death of the student. The findings of the committee were then revisited by the university’s anti-ragging squad in October last year.

The anti-ragging committee then prepared its recommendations based on the squad’s observations.

The executive council, JU’s highest decision-making body, had decided to issue the show-cause letters on July 5.