New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked courts to dispose of ragging cases expeditiously so that the action would prove a deterrent and avoid inconvenience to victims.

A Bench consisting of Justices Arijit Pasayat and S.H. Kapadia also asked the National Council of Educational Research and Training and the State bodies to explore the possibility of introducing in the curriculum a separate chapter on ragging under "human rights" to create awareness among the students of the evil effects of the practice.

The court urged the educational institutions to include in their prospectus a column seeking an undertaking from students that he/she was not involved in any ragging activity in the past and that he/she would not indulge in it in future. If the undertaking was violated, the students would be liable to be expelled.

Awareness programme

The court wanted the Central and State Governments to launch programmes, giving wide publicity among students, for dissuading them from indulging in ragging.

Non-compliance with the directives would be considered lowering academic standards by the errant institution. It would be open to the regulatory bodies or State Governments to deny grants to the institution for any failure to implement the directives. Financial awards or incentives could be considered for colleges or universities which took stringent action against the errant students.

The Bench, which accepted the bulk of the R.K. Raghavan Committee recommendations, said the other suggestions would be considered later.

It asked the panel to monitor the implementation of its recommendations and file a status report in September.

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