Days after Ramadas KS, a PhD student from Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS), was suspended by the institute authorities allegedly due to his “repetitive misconduct” and “anti-national activities”, he moved the Bombay High Court against the suspension order. In the petition filed on May 4, the PhD student from the School of Development Studies at TISS has sought that the suspension order dated April 18 be revoked on grounds that it is the fundamental right of every citizen including students of this democratic country to freedom of thought and expression. TISS suspended the student for two years for “repetitive misconduct and anti-national activities”. The Progressive Students Forum (PSF), a student organisation at TISS which was formerly led by Ramadas, had alleged that the decision was linked to his participation in a protest march in Delhi in January against alleged anti-student policies of the central government. The institute administration, however, had claimed “serious violation of discipline code made for students” and issued a public notice stating that the action taken against Ramadas is a result of findings of a detailed inquiry by an empowered committee into his repetitive misconduct over a period of time. Requesting to quash and set aside the report of the empowered committee constituted by the TISS which recommended the suspension, the petition states that the committee failed to provide the petitioner an opportunity of personal hearing or make an independent inquiry into the allegations or follow any procedure. Calling it an arbitrary inquiry, the petition states, “The defence of the petitioner has not been taken into consideration at any point of time while arriving at the findings and decision by the committee.” The petition also states that a false narrative has been created against Ramadas who has excellent academic credentials and requests court to direct the institute to take back the public notice issued on April 20 on action taken against Ramadas. On Friday, TISS and other respondents including University Grants Commission (UGC) submitted that under Clause 2.7.4 of the handbook for PhD students, an alternate remedy of preferring an appeal against the findings of the Empowering Committee has been provided, which the petitioner can resort to. However, the petitioner's lawyer for the petitioner referred to the Student Handbook 2023-2024 and disputed submission made by TISS. A division bench of Justices Atul S Chandurkar and Jitendra S Jain asked TISS to file a short affidavit to indicate the concerned alternate remedy available to the petitioner and posted the matter for consideration on May 21.
