Supreme Court raps IITs, Gr Noida university on student suicides

SC takes suo motu notice of student suicides at IIT Kharagpur and Sharda University, questioning promptness in reporting to police amid rising concerns.

The Supreme Court on Monday took suo motu cognizance of student suicides at IIT Kharagpur in West Bengal and Sharda University in Greater Noida, observing that “something is wrong” as it sought a response from the two institutes on whether the cases were promptly brought to the notice of the police or not.

The Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. (ANI)

The bench of justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan issued a notice to Sharda University where a 21-year-old Bachelor of Dental Surgery student died allegedly by suicide last week and left a note following which two faculty members were arrested.

The court also took note of the death by suicide of a fourth year student at IIT Kharagpur last week, and wondered what is happening at the institute as this is the fourth such incident there in the past seven months.

“Something is wrong,” the bench observed as it sought assistance of senior advocate Aparna Bhatt, assisting the court as amicus curiae, to gather details of the two cases and inform whether an FIR was registered and the university authorities intimated the police with promptness, in compliance with the court’s March 24 decision mandating registration of FIR for every suicide.

The court sought to know what the preliminary investigation in the two cases has revealed so far.

As IIT Kharagpur is already facing scrutiny from the court over the past incidents, the counsel for the institute told the court that the institute has acted with promptness. The bench said, “What is happening in your institute. This is the fourth unnatural death in the past seven months.”

Passing an order taking suo motu notice of the two incidents, the bench said, “This is the first day of the week and we have started the day on an extremely sad note.”

The court directed the amicus to gather details and inform court on “how promptly FIR was registered, who registered the FIR, and how promptly the educational institution acted after knowing about the suicide.”

The court had in its March order while examining two incidents of suicide at IIT Delhi expanded the scope of the matter and formed a National Task Force headed by former Supreme Court judge, justice S Ravindra Bhat, and urged the task force, comprising experts in the field, to examine the reasons for student suicides.

The committee has yet to submit its preliminary report. The court, while passing that order, noted several instances of suicides in college hostels due to sexual harassment, ragging or caste discrimination, among other factors. The court noted the death of a law student in a Gujarat law university on March 19, the death of a student at IIT Patna in February due to academic pressure, the death of a Nepali student at an engineering college in Odisha due to alleged sexual harassment and blackmail by a fellow student, and the death of a student in a Kerala engineering college earlier this year due to ragging.

The same bench which passed today’s order had authored the March 24 judgment.