Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: TO address the mental health concerns of students and prevent suicides in higher educational institutions, the Supreme Court on March 24 constituted a National Task Force headed by former judge of the top court, Justice S Ravindra Bhat.
The court observed that the recurring instances of students ending their lives in such institutions, including private ones, serve as a grim reminder of the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the existing legal and institutional framework in addressing campus-related issues.
A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan stated that these tragedies underscore the urgent need for a more robust, comprehensive, and responsive mechanism to address the various factors compelling certain students to resort to taking their own lives.
The task force has been directed to recommend measures for strengthening protections, including proposing necessary reforms to the existing legal and institutional frameworks to ensure stronger enforcement, accountability, and preventive measures. The court stated that the task force must also propose recommendations to address existing gaps, create a more inclusive and supportive academic environment, and ensure equal opportunities for marginalized communities.
The Bench directed the Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories to nominate a high-ranking officer, not below the rank of Joint Secretary in the Department of Higher Education, to act as the nodal officer for their respective regions. The court directed the task force to submit an interim report within four months and a final report preferably within eight months.
The court opined that the relentless pressure to perform in a purely scorebased education system, coupled with extreme competition for limited seats in premier educational institutions, places a terrifying burden on students’ mental health. The excessive academic load, requiring students to work on multiple projects simultaneously, exacerbates academic pressure. Several students, having come from competitive coaching centres, bring preexisting mental health issues, which get further heightened when they enter higher educational institutions.
Although it is difficult to eradicate this distress, it can still be managed by introducing flexible curricula, continuous assessment methods, structured support for managing backlogs, and on-campus support for psychological issues faced by students, the court said.
The court noted that another cause of student suicides is brutality in the form of ragging, which is often concealed by colleges and universities to safeguard their reputation, violating students’ right to dignity and education.
