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Supreme Court task force to address student suicides charts parth: broad consultation with stakeholders, feedback through social media

Former Supreme Court judge Justice S Ravindra Bhat heads task force to tackle student suicides and it met for the first time on March 29.

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The Supreme Court-appointed national task force to combat student suicides held its first meeting on March 29 and decided to hold the widest possible consultation to ensure that all key stakeholders are heard. It will soon come out with a website and a social media account for public feedback.

The task force headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice S Ravindra Bhat met virtually and listed areas which it will be looking at to come out with a comprehensive report with recommendations that can be implemented for better protection of the students. For this, besides reviewing various reports, laws, policies and regulations, the sources pointed out that the task force will also hold consultations with key stakeholders and some public meetings.

While establishing the task force on March 24, the Supreme Court noted that the number of student suicides has exceeded the instances of farmers taking their own lives due to agrarian distress. The task force was formed to address mental health concerns among students and to prevent suicides in higher educational institutions.

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“The recurring instances of student suicides in higher educational institutions, including private educational institutions, serve as a grim reminder of the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the existing legal and institutional framework in addressing mental health concerns of students on campuses and preventing them from taking the extreme step of committing suicides,” said a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan while setting it up.

The apex court’s decision came on an appeal filed by parents of two IIT Delhi students, who allegedly died by suicide, against a January 2024 order of the Delhi High Court, which refused to direct police to register an FIR in connection with the deaths.

Besides Justice Bhat, the other members of the task force are:

Alok Sarin, consultant psychiatrist, Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research, New Delhi.
Mary E John, former director, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi.
Arman Ali, executive director, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People.
Rajendar Kachroo, founder, Aman Satya Kachroo Trust.
Aqsa Shaikh, professor of the department of community medicine at Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, New Delhi.
Seema Mehrotra, professor of clinical psychology, NIMHANS.
Virginius Xaxa, visiting professor at the Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi.
Nidhi S Sabharwal, associate professor, Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.
Aparna Bhat, senior advocate as amicus curiae.

The secretaries of the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Department of Social Justice and Empowerment and Department of Legal Affairs are the ex officio members of the task force. The joint secretary of the Department of Higher Education is the convener.

The Supreme Court has given the task force four months to submit its interim report and eight months to submit the final report.

Ananthakrishnan G

Ananthakrishnan G. is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express. He has been in the field for over 23 years, kicking off his journalism career as a freelancer in the late nineties with bylines in The Hindu. A graduate in law, he practised in the District judiciary in Kerala for about two years before switching to journalism. His first permanent assignment was with The Press Trust of India in Delhi where he was assigned to cover the lower courts and various commissions of inquiry. He reported from the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India during his first stint with The Indian Express in 2005-2006. Currently, in his second stint with The Indian Express, he reports from the Supreme Court and writes on topics related to law and the administration of justice. Legal reporting is his forte though he has extensive experience in political and community reporting too, having spent a decade as Kerala state correspondent, The Times of India and The Telegraph. He is a stickler for facts and has several impactful stories to his credit. ... Read More

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