Supreme Court sets up task force to look into suicides on campuses | India News
Supreme Court Monday set up a 10-member national task force under Justice (retd) Ravindra Bhat to analyse causes for student suicides and suggest measures to prevent such deaths on campuses. The team will include doctors and mental health experts.
The directive came as the court pulled up police for not lodging a case into the suicide of two IIT-Delhi students in 2023 despite their parents alleging casteist harassment. SC asked police to lodge an FIR and investigate the allegations. It said police could not take a shortcut “just because something happened in the hostel of an…institution like IIT Delhi”.
Suicides on campus prod SC to set up mental health task force
Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine the issue of mental health problems on campuses and set up a 10-member National Task Force under a former apex court judge.
A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan was hearing a petition by parents of two IIT-Delhi students who had taken the extreme step in 2023. Holding that lodging of FIRs was mandatory in cognisable offences, the court pulled up Delhi Police for not lodging a case despite the parents’ complaint that the two students died by suicide after facing caste-based harassment from hostel inmates and faculty members.
It directed Delhi Police to lodge an FIR and initiate a probe by an officer not below rank of assistant commissioner of police into allegations of caste discrimination in IIT-D.
Noting that 98 students had died by suicide in top premier educational institutes since 2018 – 39 at IITs, 25 at NITs, 25 at central universities, four at IIMs, three at IISERs and two at IIITs – the bench expanded the litigation initiated by the aggrieved parents and set up a task force headed by retired SC Justice Ravindra Bhat to analyse and suggest measures to prevent such suicides. It will also comprise psychiatrist Alok Sarin, professors of clinical psychology Mary E John and Seema Mehrotra, and senior advocate Aparna Bhat.
“Recurring instances of student suicides in higher educational institutions, including at private educational institutions, serve as a grim reminder of the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the existing legal and institutional framework in addressing mental health concerns of students on campuses and to prevent students from taking the extreme step,” it said.
The court asked the panel to prepare a comprehensive report on predominant causes which led to such suicides, including but not limited to ragging, caste-based discrimination, gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, academic pressure, financial burden, mental health-related stigma, discrimination based on ethnicity, tribal identity, disability, sexual orientation, political views, religious belief or any other ground.
Pulling up Delhi Police for not lodging a case in the IIT-Delhi suicides, the bench said, “Even if police were of the view that there was no element of truth in what had been alleged by the appellants (students’ parents), it could have said so only after registering an FIR and conducting an investigation. We say so because this is the law. The police could not have taken a shortcut just because something happened in the hostel of an eminent educational institution. It seems 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…”
