Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday directed the state government and the police to submit a detailed report within two weeks regarding steps taken by them in complying with the Supreme Court guidelines on curbing the menace of ragging.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Tadakamalla Vinod Kumar, wanted to know if the government was taking the menace as a serious issue or just registering FIRs.
The bench was dealing with the taken up PIL on the case of PG medical student Dr Dharavath Preethi, who died by suicide due to alleged ragging harassment and ridiculing of her caste by Dr Mohammed Saif and others. Dr Preethi belonged to the Scheduled Tribes community.
The court took the case on a letter addressed by M. Mallaiah, president, Scheduled Tribes Employees Welfare Association, BHEL, Ramachandrapuram. The petitioner sought a direction to the police to book Dr Saif and his associates for murder, order a CBI probe into the suicide and pay compensation to the victim’s parents.
Earlier, the court had issued notices to the chief secretary and others to file counters. On Monday, the government counsel for medical and health filed counters.
The Chief Justice observed that filing counters and taking things as a regular course of action would not curb ragging. Justice Aradhe said that these incidents should be taken as a serious issue. He sought to know if the government counsel was aware of the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in the ‘Vishwa Jagruthi Mission vs Central Government’ to curb ragging.
The apex court stressed the mandatory obligations on every stakeholder, including the governments, police, educational institutions and their staff, to prevent ragging. It directed the UGC to bring the guidelines to the notice of all educational institutions. He wanted to know about the steps taken by the government, police and the varsity in complying with the apex court guidelines.
The Supreme Court noted that failure to prevent ragging shall be construed as an act of negligence in maintaining discipline by the management, principal and persons in authority. The university may consider disaffiliating a college or institution failing to curb ragging.
