Agra: Aligarh Muslim University’s (AMU) vice chancellor and its students’ union in unison welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to scrap a petition seeking to change the name of the varsity. The apex court on Monday dismissed a plea which sought to change the name of AMU. “You want us to do that,” asked Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi while trashing the plea.It all started when a University Grants Commission (UGC) audit panel had suggested dropping words Muslim from AMU and Hindu from Banaras Hindu University in 2017. However, after a prolonged debate over the issue, the Centre said that it had no plan to change the name of the Central university.The court’s Monday decision came as a “relief” to the people associated with the varsity.Its VC Prof Tariq Mansoor told TOI that in view of the long history of the AMU, there was no question of changing the name of the varsity. “I honour the decision of the apex court,” he said.Expressing happiness over the court’s judgment, Secretary of AMU’s students union, Huzaifa Amir said, “It is a slap on the faces of those who had been indulging in petty politics over this issue. The court has now put a full stop to all such demands.”In response to the suggestions of the UGC panel, the then university Registrar Javaid Akhtar had written a letter to the UGC saying that dropping the word ‘Muslim’ would deprive the university of its unique historical character. Dubbing the panel’s suggestion as “outrageous”, Akhtar had then said that the panel had gone beyond its brief and has incorrectly drawn a conclusion that by dropping Muslim from its name will instill secular values.Later, Union human resource development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar had told reporters on October 9, 2017, that the government would not accept the suggestion to rename AMU.But, the controversy over changing the name of the university did not end there.In May last year, Haryana finance minister Abhimanyu had demanded that AMU should be renamed after Jaat king Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh as he had donated land on which the university was built.

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