Blitz Bureau
THE Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance of student suicides at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur (West Bengal) and Greater Noida’s Sharda University, asking whether the educational institutes promptly reported the incidents to the police for the registration of FIRs.
A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan appointed senior advocate Aparna Bhatt as amicus curiae in the matter to gather details regarding the promptness of the registration of FIRs as mandated by an apex court judgment delivered in March this year. “In these two cases, if FIRs are not registered or if there is a delay and nothing has been done, be prepared.
We will initiate contempt proceedings and direct them to be sent to civil prison,” remarked the Justice Pardiwalaled Bench. In just seven months, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has witnessed four unnatural deaths. The latest case involved Ritam Mondal, a fourthyear mechanical engineering student, whose body was discovered under mysterious circumstances in his hostel room. In a separate but similarly distressing incident, a second-year Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) student of Sharda University allegedly died by suicide in the girls’ hostel located at the university campus in Greater Noida’s Knowledge Park.
A suicide note was recovered from the student’s room, in which she accused one male and one female faculty member of the university’s dental department of mentally harassing her. Based on a complaint filed by the student’s family, police registered an FIR against two faculty members under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including charges related to abetment of suicide.
