College heads to be held responsible for ragging: Uttarakhand HC

Nainital: The Uttarakhand High Court has passed directions to the state and university authorities to strictly implement the regulations to curb ragging in all the higher educational institutions of the State.

The court observed that the heads of colleges/institutions in the state will be held responsible for any occurrence of ragging activity in the college.

The court stated in a case related to the ragging of 1st year MBBS Students at Susheela Tiwari Government Medical College, Haldwani last year.

The bench comprising of Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Alok Kumar Verma observed that the activity of ragging is perpetuated by each successive batch, as if it is to take revenge for the torment that they have been subjected to, by their seniors.”

The Court in its order underlined that in each institution, an Anti-Ragging Committee should be constituted which is to be headed by the head of the institution, and consists of representatives of civil and police administration, local media, NGOs involved in youth activities, representatives of faculty members, parents and students belonging to the freshers’ category, as well as senior students, non-teaching staff. 

The Court pointed out that every University is also required to constitute a Monitoring Cell on ragging, which shall coordinate with the affiliated colleges and Institutions under the University to achieve the objectives of the Regulations.

“Apart from that, a District Level Anti-Ragging Committee is required to be constituted by the State Government to be headed by the District Magistrate for the control and elimination of ragging in institutions, within the jurisdiction of the District”, the Court added.

Accordingly, the Court directed the State to disclose in its affidavit the particulars of each and every institution in the State imparting education at graduate, post graduate, and professional level and to collect information from all such institutions with regard to the constitution of the Anti-Ragging Committee at the institutional levels.

“The State Government shall also collect information from the head of the institutions-whether, they are strictly complying with aforesaid Regulations, or not.

The information so collected shall be placed before this Court by the State Government in a tabulated form, indicating the status of compliance / non-compliance by the institutions,” the Court further added.

The high court also directed state government to constitute district level committees within the next two weeks if there is none at each district.

The court concluded, “We put the heads of all graduate level, post graduate level, and professional institutions in the State to notice, that non-compliance of the aforesaid Regulations shall be viewed seriously, and the head of the institution concerned, wherever acts of ragging are found to be occurring shall be held responsible.”