The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Centre, the Delhi government and the Delhi University (DU) on a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a comprehensive policy to provide safe, affordable and adequate hostel facilities for the university students across the Capital.The plea was filed in the wake of the collapse of the five-storey building in south-west Delhi’s Satya Niketan killing at least seven persons and injuring several others. A Bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia issued the notice and posted the matter for hearing on September 25, when another PIL on a similar issue is also listed.The petition, filed by National Students Union of India president Vinod Jakhar through advocate Vimal Tyagi, also sought immediate safety measures for students living in private PG accommodations and hostels, including structural and fire-safety audits of such premises.The petition alleged an acute shortage of institutional accommodation at the university, which, it said, had worsened substantially since DU was established in 1922 as a “unitary, teaching and residential university”.According to the petitioner, DU has around 1.32 lakh students enrolled in regular programmes, while its hostel capacity remains “grossly inadequate”.Students often have no practical means of independently verifying whether such premises comply with structural, fire-safety and other statutory requirements, the petition said.‘Students across city’“The issue is not confined to North Campus, South Campus or any particular college or locality. Colleges of the Delhi University are situated throughout the NCT of Delhi and the shortage of safe and affordable institutional accommodation is consequently a University-wide problem requiring a University-wide policy response,” the plea stated.The petition added that the absence of affordable institutional accommodation “disproportionately affects outstation students and students belonging to economically weaker families” and could substantially increase the cost of accessing public higher education.While hearing a separate petition on Monday, the court had ordered a high-level inquiry by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) into the building collapse and made it clear that the government could not evade responsibility for the tragedy.Calling the incident “most unfortunate”, the court had said such tragedies reflected inadequate measures by the MCD and other authorities and directed them to intensify rescue efforts to save lives. Published - September 10, 2026 12:55 am IST