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Supreme Court suggests panel to examine impact of ragging

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday recommended the appointment of a committee of mental health specialists to examine the impact of ragging on young students as well as the reason why seniors torment their juniors.

It also recommended urgent and mandatory mental health measures to be implemented in, and practised by, schools, colleges, and all educational and vocational institutions so as to prevent any future instance of ragging, bullying and other forms of student abuse.

A Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and A.K. Ganguly made these suggestions on petitions relating to cases of ragging in Dr. Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, Himachal Pradesh, and the Bapatla Agriculture Engineering College in Andhra Pradesh.

The Bench said every college should have a psychiatrist to provide counselling to students who indulged in ragging. In cases of alcoholism, educational institutions would take de-addiction measures. All State governments were asked to give undertakings to the court that they would take steps in accordance with its directions.

The Bench also gave its nod for a proposal submitted by the Ministry of Human Resource Development to set up a helpline for ragging victims.

The court agreed with a suggestion that the HRD Ministry, in consultation with the UGC, the MCI, the AICTE and similar regulatory bodies, would set up a central crisis-hotline and anti-ragging database in the manner suggested by Dr. Rajendra Kachroo (whose son Amann died after he was ragged in a medical college) to the Raghavan Committee and the UGC.

It said, “once the database/crisis hotline is operative, State governments should amend their anti-ragging statutes to include provisions that place penal consequences on institutional heads who do not take timely steps in the prevention of ragging and the punishing of those who rag.”

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