MU gives hostel seat to student from another dept

Mumbai: In a goof-up, the department of law of the University of Mumbai (MU) gave their hostel seat to a student who does not belong to the department. The student, Anjali Sharma (name changed)  from law department was allotted a hostel seat — in the Savitri Bai Phule Girls Hostel, however, when she went to complete the formalities she got to know that her room was given to a student from University of Mumbai Law Academy (UMLA), a constituent unit of the varsity.

Ms Sharma, who is from Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh successfully gave an interview for hostel seat on October 22. In the list declared on October 23 declaring the names of selected students had Ms Sharma’s name on it. However, on Friday when she went to the hostel to complete the remaining formalities, she found out that her hostel room was given to a girl from UMLA.

“Once the name is displayed, we have to submit a recommendation letter from MU to the hostel to confirm the seat. When I went there on Friday, I was told to share a room with a senior instead of giving me my allocated room. When I inquired about it, I was bluntly dismissed saying it is how it works here,” Ms. Sharma, student of Masters of Law (LL.M), explained to The Asian Age.

Moreover, as per Ms Sharma (23), the warden of the hostel located at the Kalina campus of MU, asked her to sign an undertaking which stated that she (student) doesn’t have a problem with sharing the room and she will be need to bring her own bed in the room. “I was shown a room by the Warden in which there was only one bed, mirror, cupboard, etc. The room is for one person but she asked me to arrange a bed for myself. If I had so much money then I would have stayed somewhere else,” she added.

As per the handbook of department of law, there are two seats for female students of LL.M. While one is for the second year student, the other one is for the first year student.

Meanwhile, calls made this newspaper to Rashmi Oza, the head of the department, to seek a reply went unanswered. Another senior official, on the condition of anonymity said, “We don’t ask students to sign any undertaking and if the hostel room is allocated to a student then she will be getting it no matter what happens.”