NEW DELHI: In a breakthrough that could expedite the process of registration for the winter semester, the JNU Students' Union said on Saturday that it was ready to allow registration but with riders, including a rollback of hiked hostel fees. It was earlier decided that UGC would pay the service and utility charges but the hostel fees remain a sticking point.However, the lack of trust between the JNU administration and union persists and the latter made it clear that it won't allow a security audit of hostels to check for any unauthorised students, guests or other outsiders on the campus. The audit is to be carried out by the wardens on request of the SHO, Vasant Kunj.The union sees this as a punitive action against the students and in violation of the spirit of the ministry of human resource development's advice to the VC to be lenient and accommodative.Addressing a press conference called to give their account of what happened on January 5 on campus, JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh - who was injured in the attack and has also been named by Delhi police as a suspect- said: "Registration with the hiked fees will not happen. We appeal to students to pay the academic registration fee but they won't pay the hostel fees. We don't accept any fee that is hiked and demand that another Inter-Hall Admi- nistration (IHA) meeting be called."The union said it has informed the MHRD about this condition today and asked it to communicate to the VC.The union had earlier decided on a boycott of registration after it called for a strike on campus from October 28, 2019. This was when, at an IHA meeting, the hostel manual was passed which led to a hike in fees with some new charges added."Unless a meeting of IHA is called again, we will not call off our boycott," said JNUSU general secretary Satish Chandra Yadav."We are ready to pay the registration fees of Rs 120 (for research scholars) and Rs 108 (for BA and MA) and are taking one step forward," he said. The security audit of hostels is, however, being resisted. The administration had, in order to sanitise the hostels of unauthorised students, guests or outsiders, written a letter to senior wardens, asking them to conduct a check and report if any such person was detected."Despite MHRD asking the administration to be lenient, 300 students have had their registration blocked based on an inquiry going on against them. We told MHRD that we want a dialogue but registration cannot be stopped because of an inquiry," said Yadav.Opposing this exercise, Ghosh said: "We have elected hostel presidents and committee members, and if there is an audit, they should be given information prior to it. How can the same wardens and teachers who beat up students conduct an audit?"She requested the hostel presidents to conduct general body meetings to oppose the audit.