SC committee wants a law to curb ragging

Supreme Court appointed committee recommends a law to check accountability of educational institutions for cases related with ragging, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 15, 2007, 02:27:22 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A Supreme Court appointed committee last week recommended a comprehensive law to check ragging, while seeking accountability of educational institutions for such cases.

The proposed anti-ragging law had faced some opposition in the committee with certain members raising questions over its enforceability.

Six states have enacted anti-ragging laws following a Supreme Court order in 1999 but a negligible number of cases have been registered under the law, a government official said.

The committee in a report to the court has found out that the conviction rate in ragging cases booked under Indian Penal Code was poor and has recommended specific changes in the IPC to improve it.

HRD ministry told Rajya Sabha on Monday that no data is maintained centrally on ragging cases. Earlier this year, a social group Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURA) has said 25 suicides have been reported because of ragging in the last seven years.

The CURA report also said, “Many institutions don’t report cases of ragging fearing loss of reputation.” The committee wants educational institutions to be made punishable for hiding cases and has recommended a code of guidelines for the colleges.

The committee headed by former CBI Director R K Raghavan had also drawn a social profile of the victims and found that most of the ragging victims were either from rural areas or socially backward communities.

To bridge the divide, the committee has suggested an induction programme for the freshers with the help of senior students under faculty guidance. It also speaks about faculty training to check ragging incidents.

The committee appointed by the court to look into ways of preventing ragging and possible action against the accused has recommended stern penalties including rustication for the accused. The colleges would have to set up psychological counselling mechanism for the victims, the committee has said.

A committee member said the court is expected to consider the report soon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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