New Delhi: In a major blow to AAP government, the Delhi High Court on Friday stayed state govt’s decision, asking 12 Delhi University colleges to pay outstanding salaries to staffers from the Students Society Fund.

Justice Navin Chawla passed the order on a plea by Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) which said the students fund cannot be used for any other activity other than for students’ welfare.

DUSU’s counsel argued in court that the fund cannot be used for paying teachers’ salaries.

DUSU president had filed an appeal seeking a stay on the order of Delhi government’s Directorate of Higher Education. In its petition, it claimed that the Students Society Fund (SSF) corpus was entirely constituted by the fees charged from the students and should be meant for utilized only for the purpose of student welfare.

DUSU has challenged the October 16 order of Delhi government asking the 12 colleges to pay the salaries of over 1500 staff– both teaching and non-teaching– from the students fund and the amount should be released within two weeks.

The college staff have not been paid for the last three months.

12 colleges which are affiliated with the Delhi University and are fully funded by the Delhi government include Acharya Narendra Dev College, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, Bhagini Nivedita College, DeenDayal Upadhyaya College, Aditi Mahavidyalaya Women’s College, Indira Gandhi Institute of Physical Education & Sports Sciences, Keshav Mahavidyalaya, Maharaja Agrasen College (DU), Maharshi Valmiki College of Education, Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Sciences for Women and Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies.

The high court issued notice to the Directorate of Higher Education, Delhi University and Delhi government and sought their replies on the petition by DUSU.

Advocate Jivesh Tiwari, appearing for DUSU, said the fund is collected from students and nothing comes from the government and urged the high court to stay the operation of the government’s decision.

“Such arbitrary and illegal usage of the money raised by the students for their academic welfare has forced the petitioner who represents the students of the university as a union, to come to this court for quashing of such illegal, unjust and arbitrary order that is unjust and violative of the rights of the students as a whole,” the plea said.