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Informist, Monday, Mar. 24, 2025

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Monday formed a national task force to prepare a comprehensive report on the cause of the increasing number of suicides by students in higher educational institutes. The task force, headed by former apex court judge S. Ravindra Bhat, will include consultant psychiatrists, professors and other relevant people. 

 

The remit of the task force is to prepare a comprehensive report that includes the identification of the predominant causes of suicide by students, an analysis of existing regulations and recommendations for strengthening protections. In the process of preparing its report, the task force will have the authority to conduct surprise inspections of any higher educational institution, said the bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan.

 

The task force has been asked to present an interim report within four months from the date of the order and the final report preferably within eight months, the court said.

 

Noting recent incidents of suicide by the students, the top court said that what disturbs it, even more, is that these were not isolated one-off occurrences but were only a few out of the many which have taken place over a period owing to a multitude of reasons like ragging, academic pressure, caste-based discrimination, sexual harassment and others. As per the data provided by the Minister of State for Education to the Rajya Sabha in 2023, 98 students died by suicide in higher educational institutes since 2018, out of which 39 were from Indian Institutes of Technology, 25 from National Institutes of Technology, 25 from central universities, four from Indian Institutes of Management, three from Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research and two from Indian Institutes of Information Technology, said the court.

 

"Each suicide is a personal tragedy that prematurely takes the life of an individual and has a continuing ripple effect, affecting the lives of families, friends and communities," the court said. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, over 13,000 students lost their lives by committing suicide in the country in 2021 which is almost twice the number a decade ago, the court said. The number of student suicides has now surpassed suicides committed by farmers due to agrarian distress, with a 4% rise in 2024 alone, the court said.

 

The court said several news reports point out that caste-based discrimination is rampant and pervasive, even in prestigious educational institutions, aggravating the sense of alienation among students from marginalised communities. Caste-based discrimination on college campuses is in clear violation of Article 15 of the Constitution which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of caste, the court said. The Ministry of Education told the Sabha in 2021 that 60% of the students who dropped out from seven reputed Indian Information of Technology belonged to the reserved categories, the court said.

 

The apex court was hearing a case where two young boys engineering students were found dead in their hostel rooms under suspicious circumstances at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Their parents had sought registration of a first information report alleging that the students were murdered with the conspiracy of IIT faculty members to hide the real facts. The parents alleged that both the students belonged to scheduled castes and they had informed them several times regarding caste discrimination by the faculty and staff of IIT. The parents alleged that the faculty members were trying to save the real accused persons and the police officials were also not investigating the case properly.

 

On refusal of police authorities to register a first information report, the parents had moved the Delhi High Court, which rejected the request. Challenging the high court's order, the parents moved the Supreme Court. The apex court said that it seemed that the police very quickly jumped to the conclusion that the two boys were in some sort of depression as they were not doing well in their studies. Such a conclusion could have been arrived at only after following the due process of law, which was the registration of a first information report and investigation. The court directed the police authorities to register the first information report and depute an officer, not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police, to investigate the case.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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