Uttarakhand HC Orders University Authorities To Enforce Rules To Combat Ragging In Educational Institutions

The Uttarakhand High Court has recently directed the State and University authorities to strictly enforce the Regulations to combat ragging in all of the State’s higher educational institutions.

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Alok Kumar Verma expressed grave concern over the ragging menace.

“It is seen that the activity of ragging is perpetuated by each successive batch, as if to take revenge for the torment that they have been subjected to, by their seniors,” the bench stated.

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in response to a report published in the newspaper on March 6, 2022, emphasising the ragging of several first-year MBBS students at Sushila Tiwari Government Medical College in Haldwani.

The petitioner sought the Court to provide required directives to the respondent authorities directing them to adopt necessary and permanent steps to prohibit ragging throughout higher educational institutions in order to prevent it from happening again in the future.

The Court noted that the obligation for preventing and curtailing ragging activity, as specified in Regulation 3, has been placed on the heads of the respective institutions.

The Court emphasised that an Anti-Ragging Committee should be formed in each institution, led by the institution’s head, and comprised of representatives from civil and police administration, local media, NGOs involved in youth activities, faculty members, parents, and freshmen students, as well as senior students and non-teaching staff.

The Court emphasised that every university is also needed to establish a ragging Monitoring Cell, which will work with the university’s affiliated colleges and institutions to achieve the objectives of the regulations.

“Aside from that, the State Government is required to form a District Level Anti-Ragging Committee to be led by the District Magistrate for the control and elimination of ragging in institutions within the District’s jurisdiction,” the Court stated.

As a result, the Court ordered the State to disclose in its affidavit the particulars of every institution in the State that provides education at the graduate, postgraduate, and professional levels, as well as to collect information from all such institutions regarding the establishment of the Anti-Ragging Committee at the institutional levels.

“The State Government shall also collect information from the heads of the institutions to determine whether or not they are strictly complying with the aforementioned Regulations. The information gathered shall be presented to this Court in tabular form by the State Government, indicating the status of compliance / non-compliance by the institutions,” the Court added.

The State Government was also compelled to reveal whether or not District Level Committees had been formed, and if not, they were directed to be formed within the next two weeks.