The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) has alleged procedural violations in the investigation into a sexual harassment complaint lodged by 47 female students with the university’s Internal Grievance Committee (ICC) after a student party.

In a letter to vice-chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) accused the committee of watering down the case by treating it as an “individual grievance” rather than a collective grievance.

The union said 47 female students from the Center for the Study of Social Systems (CSSS) filed a collective complaint with the ICC on Wednesday for alleged sexual harassment and violence during the CSSS freshers’ party at the Convention Center on Tuesday (October 22).

However, the plaintiffs were informed that president Vandana Mishra would not meet all the survivors together and asked them to appoint five representatives to present the case, the union said.

During the ICC meeting on Thursday, four student representatives arrived late, taking advantage of which the ICC members tried to intimidate the lone complainant by pressuring her for a private deposition, JNUSU alleged in its letter on Friday.

The union said this was an effort to break the collective nature of the grievance. “Survivors do not agree with this because the complaint was filed collectively, but were trying to dilute this into five individual cases of harassment,” the letter said.

According to JNUSU, during the deposition, the complainant was allegedly asked “irrelevant and intimidating questions” such as “Why didn’t you go to your center president first?” and “Who told you about the ICC trial?”

The letter also said: “These questions do not relate to the jurisdiction of the ICC and were intended to threaten survivors and extract information from her about the case in order to weaken our case.”

The union also raised concerns that a member of staff had recorded a video of the complainant during the confidential session, compromising her anonymity.

JNUSU representatives and CSSS students intervened, demanding that a JNUSU representative be allowed to attend the survivors’ depositions, that a restraining order be issued without naming the survivors, and that the complaint be treated as a class action. They also insisted that any videos taken during the confidential meeting be deleted immediately.

However, Mishra reportedly rejected these requests and brought in external personnel from the Campus Security Office (CSO), which JNUSU claimed was an attempt to “protect” the accused.