Ragging Menace: Gujarat High Court Initiates Suo Motu PIL, Issues Notice To The State Education Department

A division bench comprising of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice Ashutosh Shastri impleaded the Additional Chief Secretary of the State Education Department and the Commissioners of Higher Education, Technical Education and Health, Medical Services, Medical Education and Research as respondents herein and issued notices to them. The Court directed them to file a counter affidavit setting out the steps taken to contain the issue.

The suo motu PIL has been initiated as recommended by a sitting Judge of the Gujarat High Court based on a news report in a local bulletin about the recent incident of ragging in a private medical college of the Vadodara district, Gujarat.

“It is a communication addressed to one of us by a sitting Judge of this Court highlighting the issue of ragging menace occurring in the State of Gujarat by enclosing the paper publication of ‘Ahmedabad Mirror’. Having regard to the said menace as highlighted by the ‘Ahmedabad Mirror’, a local bulletin, on 3^rd January 2023, we are of the considered view that the concerned departments have to be called for to state on affidavit, the steps taken to contain the same.” – the Court said.

When the matter was taken up, the Advocate for the State accepted the notice on behalf of the respondents. The matter has been posted for 30^th January 2023.

As per the news report, the father of a medical student filed a complaint on December 27 after his son left their home with the intention to commit suicide due to depression after being ragged and was rescued from a railway station. The news report stated that the first-year resident doctor had complained against two senior resident doctors for allegedly abusing him in public, extorting money and compelling him to work like a bonded labourer.

This is the second incident of alleged ragging in the State of Gujarat after the recent one in another private medical college in which the authorities suspended two seniors for three semesters and another one for two semesters.

CASE TITLE: SUO MOTU Versus STATE OF GUJARAT