Nainital: The Uttarakhand high court (HC) on Friday while hearing a PIL filed by an alumnus of the National Institute of Technology ( NIT ) Srinagar, directed the state and central governments to file their replies within three weeks. The matter was heard in the division bench of chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice Alok Singh.The PIL, filed by NIT alumnus Jasveer Singh on Thursday, had demanded that an interim campus for the institute be decided at the earliest. It had also asked the government to bear the cost of treatment of the student who met with an accident in October while crossing the road to reach the campus.Abhijay Negi, counsel for the petitioner, told TOI, “We are grateful to the court for viewing the matter seriously. The court has directed the respondents to file their replies in three weeks. We hope the state and central governments do some serious introspection and the future of students is not impaired further.”The petitioner, in his petition had stated that “NIT Uttarakhand’s scattered campus and accommodation poses a particular danger to the health and safety of its students as the journey to classes everyday is like walking on a dangerous path since National Highway 7 (earlier known as NH 58) runs through the route of the students from their accommodation to their laboratories/classes. “The petition further said, “The testament of the danger posed by such management of NIT has sadly been Neelam Meena, a native of Dausa, Rajasthan who was recently struck by an over-speeding car and was deeply injured and wounded on October 3. To save her life, the Srinagar base hospital was poorly equipped and she had to be taken 106 kilometers away to Rishikesh at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Today, as she battles for her life, doctors have expressed doubt on the mobility of the lower part of her body.”The petition stated that “half the campus of NIT Uttarakhand is running from the polytechnic campus in Srinagar and the other half is running from the ITI Institute in Srinagar.”“In a very tragically amusing fashion, students have been accommodated at nearby hotels and from there, they somehow manage to attend their college classes. Even the director and registrar of NIT Uttarakhand have been staying at a local hotel,” said the petition.The petitioner pointed out that over eight years have passed since the NIT was established but still, “such an institute of national importance is running on borrowed territory.”Notably, chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had a few days ago emphasised that the NIT campus would not shift out of Srinagar, but instead will operate from the land that has been allotted to the institute at nearby Sumari.Touching upon this point, the petition said that when Sumari area in Srinagar was proposed for NIT Uttarakhand’s permanent campus, IIT Roorkee had carried out an independent technical study into the feasibility of the land in Sumari and held it to be unfit for NIT’s campus.Citing a report prepared in the aftermath of the Kedarnath flash floods of 2013 by the state government, the petition said that the report “specifically mentions on page 13 that the area around the ITI (the present location of NIT Uttarakhand) is unstable and has a lot of stilt collected around it.”“The permanent campus of NIT Uttarakhand has been caught between political battles and arbitrary decision making, directly impacting the very future of over nine hundred students that are currently associated with NIT Uttarakhand,” the petition concluded.

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