St Stephen College. (Source: St Stephen College. (Source: http://www.ststephensedu (dot)com)

The principal of St Stephen’s College, Valson Thampu, has suspended an e-magazine for publishing an interview of him allegedly without obtaining clearance. A one-man disciplinary committee has been constituted to look into the matter.

Devansh Mehta, a philosophy student and editor and co-founder of St Stephen’s Weekly, said he had written to Sanjay Rao Ayde — the member of the disciplinary committee — on the matter. “I have sent an email to the one-man committee and asked for official confirmation of his appointment and the grounds on which I have been suspended. Unless I receive that, I will not go for the meeting, which is scheduled for Thursday,” he said. Ayde is a senior tutor at the institute.

The magazine had gone live on March 7 and registered over 2,000 hits for an interview of the principal. But it was banned by Thampu and Mehta ticked off for alleged “breach of discipline” and for not taking his clearance for publishing the interview.

In an email to the students, he wrote, “It is unacceptable that despite being explicitly told not to publish anything (especially my interview) before I had the time to go through and clear the text, you went ahead in defiance. It denotes an awkward failure of education and that is why I cannot take it lightly.”

However, Mehta said there has been no explanation as to why the magazine was banned. “I have absolutely no idea as to why the magazine was banned. There was nothing offensive or problematic in the interview with the principal. He was happy with the interview.

We had audio and video recording of the interview and we had sent him the transcript. But he didn’t reply. So we didn’t delay the launch and went ahead with it,” he said.

Mehta added that the students had checked with the authorities before launching the magazine.

Despite repeated attempts, Thampu couldn’t be contacted.

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