The Supreme Court asked the Centre to set up a committee to suggest steps for curbing such incidents in colleges and universities.
NEW DELHI: Describing ragging as a ‘menace’, the Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre to set up a committee to suggest steps for curbing such incidents in colleges and universities that have “crossed the limits of decency, morality and humanity.”
A bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat asked the Human Resource Development Ministry, headed by Arjun Singh, to constitute a committee on the lines of the recommendations made by the JM Lyngdoh panel on ways to curb violence and use of money power in the elections to the unions of various universities. “The Centre should initate the task within three months,” the court said.
Arjun Singh welcomed this order saying, “The court’s observation is welcome and we would render all help for it. These incidents (of ragging) influence all and have drawn attention of everyone.”
The direction is following a PIL by Vishwa Jagriti Mission in 1998. It had sought directions to the authorities, to curb the menace of ragging, which it said was an ever-increasing problem. In 2001, the court had said the PIL needed a detailed hearing.
“The petition involves dealing with an issue which is likely to affect a large number of students and their relationships with other students coming from different age-groups and socio-cultural background, as also the relationship of the students with the institution itself,” a bench of the then Justices R C Lahoti and Brijesh Kumar had observed.
The court had also said that the issue raised in the PIL could not be dealt with “through a legalistic approach only” as “sociological and psychological factors shall have to be kept in view.”
Now, the court stressed on teachers’ involvement in checking this tendency. “We feel that the acts of indiscipline and misbehaviour by the students must primarily be dealt with within the institution and by exercise of the disciplinary authority of the teachers over the students and of the management of the institutions over the teachers and students.”
“Students ought not ordinarily be subjected to police action unless it be unavoidable. The students going to educational institutions for learning should not remain under constant fear of being dealt with by police and sent to jail and face the courts,” the court observed.
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