In a stinging assessment of how universities are tackling ragging, the Delhi High Court, on July 11, hinted it might launch a suo motu public interest litigation to scrutinise the University Grants Commission (UGC)’s handling of the crisis.
The move comes amid disturbing statistics: students made up 7.6% of all suicide deaths in India in 2022, amounting to 13,044 cases — exceeding the toll among farmers and agricultural workers combined, The Hindu reports.
Data presented to the court revealed the problem is worsening. Complaints to the UGC’s anti-ragging helpline rose from 883 in 2022 to 962 in 2023 and have already touched 1,084 this year. According to Aman Satya Kachroo Trust (ASKT), medical colleges account for nearly 40% of all such cases.
ASKT also pointed out that ragging-related deaths have jumped from an average of seven annually before 2022 to 17 each year since then.
The Bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela minced no words in questioning the UGC’s priorities. “Spending Rs 44 lakh yearly for overseeing the welfare of 35 million students across the country — how do you justify this? You have to open your coffers,” it remarked.
Highlighting the emotional toll, the court observed, “This issue of ragging appears to be very superficial, but if you ever met someone who has dropped out on account of ragging, only then you would realise. A person who [dies by] suicide, we are never able to interact with.”
The scrutiny by the Delhi High Court follows similar alarm bells rung by the Supreme Court in March. As The Hindu noted, the apex court criticised how UGC regulations on ragging prevention often stay confined to paperwork, reduced to undertakings signed by students and parents or posters pasted across campuses.
The Supreme Court had also ordered an FIR to be filed in connection with two student suicides at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in 2023, besides directing the creation of a National Task Force on student mental health. ASKT’s lawyer, Advocate Indira Unninayar, argued that the situation deteriorated after the UGC handed management of the anti-ragging programme to another agency in 2022.
Raj Kachroo, founder of ASKT and father of Aman Kachroo, who was killed by ragging in 2009, originally helped design the National Ragging Prevention Programme under UGC supervision. This framework included a 24x7 helpline, mandatory online affidavits to raise awareness, and mechanisms for independent monitoring.
However, Kachroo told the court the helpline now functions merely as a referral centre with no access to case files. Anonymous complaints are no longer accepted, and crucial annual surveys have been discontinued.
“They are playing with the lives of the students,” he warned, underlining how the earlier model had helped reduce ragging from 40% in 2009 to under 5% in 2020 based on confidential data from 5,000 colleges.
Meanwhile, a National Medical Commission survey in 2024 uncovered that 31% of 37,000 postgraduate students had suicidal thoughts and 4.4% had attempted suicide within a year, with over a quarter reporting ragging. This mounting mental health crisis may finally be forcing the judiciary to act.