Four Universiti Malaya student council leaders, who have been slapped with show-cause letters for holding a protest during US President Barack Obama's visit to the campus, are mulling legal action against the university.

Among them is student council secretary Fahmi Zainol, who said the group was consulting with lawyers for the action they can take.

The show-cause letters were issued to them yesterday by the UM Student Affairs Department (HEP).

"The existence of the student affairs department is no longer relevant. HEP is one of the institutes to manage students' activities but it has abused its power," Fahmi said at a press conference at the UM campus today.

He also accused HEP of oppressing freedom of speech and association and their academic rights.

On April 27, Fahmi and his committee members formed a group and 10 of them held a brief protest against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) when Obama met with participants from the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative at the university.

Besides Fahmi ( left ), the other three student representatives who received show-cause letters are deputy chairperson Lee Jin Yang, assistant secretary Leong Yu Sheng and committee member Anis Nabihah Alias.

The letters require the four to explain their actions during the programme with Obama within seven days, failing which disciplinary action would be taken against them.

To this, Fahmi sarcastically said the university should instead issue show-cause letters to those who threw "non-critical" questions to the US president.

"They (those students) asked questions that don't reflect the intellect of UM's undergraduates and cast the name of university in poor light," he added.