By the Court.—The petition has been filed in public interest by four students of Law, two of them from the University of Allahabad, one from Gujarat National Law University and another from Christ University, Bangalore. All the students are working as Interns with the Human Rights Law Network.

2. Aligarh Muslim University (University), which is spread over 467.6 hectares in the city of Aligarh, offers more than three hundred courses in conventional and modern branches of education.

3. The grievance emanates from articles which were published in the city editions of the Indian Express, The Times of India and The Hindu on 12 November 2014. These news articles attributed to the Vice Chancellor a decision not to allow access to undergraduate women students to the main library situated in the campus of the University. The news article in The Times of India attributes a statement to the Vice Chancellor, the third respondent, that the main library at the University campus is over crowded, which led to the decision.

4. When the Court took up the matter on 14 November 2014, the Court observed, prima facie, without expressing a conclusive or final opinion on the issues raised that any effort to regulate a problem of ‘over crowding’ in a campus library would have to be on a gender neutral basis. A breach of gender neutrality would involve an infraction of constitutional norms in relation to the guarantees of equality under Article 14 and of gender identity under Article 15 of the Constitution. Since the petition was based on newspaper reports, we had considered it appropriate to direct service of the proceedings on the second and the third respondents. In the meantime, the Court expected that the second and the third respondents would deal with the matter as responsible statutory authorities should and resolve an unseemly controversy having due regard to the letter and spirit of the constitutional provisions.

5. In pursuance of the order of the Court dated 14 November 2014, counsel entered on behalf of the second and the third respondents. A statement has been handed over to the Court of the position of the second and the third respondents. For convenience of reference, we reproduce the statement in its entirety:

“It is to clarify that there is no restrictions on entry of girls studying at AMU main campus to the Maulana Azad Library (MAL). Total number of female members of the Maulana Azad Library during the session 2013-14 was 2757.

2. It is only girls of Women’s College, which is located three kilometres away, who have not been given membership upto academic session 2013-14 for the following reasons:

(a) Women’s College already has a well stocked library on their campus (Total number of Volumes 56065 and total number of Titles 14778). The complete catalogue of Maulana Azad Library is available on the net and the girls of Women’s College can place demands for books. It is regrettable that the number of demands for books has been minuscule (From session 2012 to 2014, total number of demands was only 21 Books.).

(b) The Maulana Azad Library is always over crowded despite being open 18 hours from 08:00 am to 2.00 am, seven day a week. It was constructed when it had to cater for 7000 students. Now the strength is 28000. There are seven reading Halls having the capacity to seat 1150 students at a time.

(c) Safety of girls moving from Women’s College to Maulana Azad Library, especially after dark, is a major security hazard because lumpen elements of Aligarh city. There have been several cases of chain snatching and “eve teasing”. This aspect can be taken care of if the girls can be conveyed by bus. Unfortunately there was a total ban on purchase of new vehicles, by Universities, till it was clarified that replacements for condemned vehicles could be resorted to.

(d) The Vice-Chancellor on 10 June 2013 had written a personal letter to each parent of girls studying in Women’s College explaining the situation and asking them if they wou