Members of a university general council continue their membership despite graduating unless a new council is constituted.

1. The petitioners have approached this Court challenging their removal from the General Council of the University. The prayer is to quash Ext.P7, wherein they are not included. The short facts required are as follows:

2. Petitioners were elected as University Union councillors from the colleges, who are shown as respondents 4 to 14. The General Council comprising of the University Union Councilors elected from the colleges was constituted on 27.10.2022. Prior to the constitution of the General Council on 12.05.2023, the 1st respondent had issued Ext.P5 notification for the purpose of reconstituting the Senate of the University. Ext.P5 gives the time line for the publication of the electoral roll with respect to 12 of the constituencies from which persons are to be elected to the Senate. As far as the General Council of the University Union is concerned, the date for publication of the electoral roll was 22.06.2023. The electoral roll was published by the 1st respondent on 22.06.2023, which included the petitioners. As per Ext.P5, persons who are on the Electoral Body 60 days before the date of publication of the roll alone shall be included in the electoral roll, and such persons alone shall be entitled to participate in the election. It also provides that any person who ceases to be a member of an Electoral Body before the date of issue of the ballot paper from the University office shall not be entitled to participate in the election. Since the petitioners were in the Electoral Body 60 days prior to 22.06.2023, they were entitled to be included in the list. Ext.P5 also says that the Returning Officer can make any addition, correction, alteration or deletion to the electoral roll, provided, the fact necessitating such correction is brought to his notice within 15 days after the publication of the electoral roll. Subsequently, the 1st respondent issued another notification on 16.08.2023 making deletions in the electoral roll, which is published as Ext.P6. In Ext.P7, the petitioners' names were deleted. The petitioners submitted representations before the Registrar of the University stating that they had become members of the General Council on 27.10.2022 and they had participated in the University Union Election and they sought reconsideration of the decision to remove them from the electoral roll. It is thereafter that they have approached this Court. The petitioners submit that going by the provisions of the University Statutes, they continued to be members of the General Council till a new General Council is constituted. Reliance is placed on Statue 13 of the Kannur University First Statutes , the provisions of which have been extracted in Ext.P5. Statute 26 relating to the electoral roll of members of the General Council states that the electoral roll shall contain the name and college address of all the members of the General Council of the University Union and in the case of full time students of the departments of the University, it shall show the names of the full time students department - wise. Chap.46 of the Kannur University First Statutes relates to elections. In statute 2 the procedure for conducting an election is laid down. Statute 2(ii) specifically says that all members of the General Council of the Kannur University Union and full time students in the University Departments on the date of issue of notification shall be entitled to participate in the concerned elections.

3. Ext.P1 is the schedule of the student union election for 2022-2023, which would show that 20.06.2023 is the date for declaration of the results. As already stated, petitioners participated in the election having been in the electoral roll with effect from 27.10.2022. Ext.P3 is the final electoral roll of the University