New Delhi, November 6
After accepting the guidelines laid down by a committee of former Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh for regulating student union elections in the country, the Supreme Court today allowed the government to set up another panel under former CBI Director R.K. Raghvan to suggest measures to curb ragging in educational institutions.
The issue of ragging was raised amid hearing of a bunch of petitions for regulating the student union elections, including the one related to the murder of Prof H.S. Sabharwal in Ujjain earlier this year during these elections.
Additional Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam told a Bench of Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr Justice Lokeshwar Singh Panta that the Union Government had proposed to set up a committee under Mr Raghvan to suggest measures to check ragging in educational institutions in the same manner as norms were laid down by the Lyngdoh panel for college union elections.
The government has taken a serious note of certain recent incidents in some institutions where fresh students were harassed in the name of ragging and some of them had even committed suicide.
Taking his statement on record, the court gave the green light to the government to check ragging, which of late has attained dangerous dimensions.
Meanwhile, the MP Police submitted a report on the progress of investigation in the Professor Sabharwal murder case, which was being probed by a special investigating team, headed by a
DIG-rank officer on the orders of the apex court.
After perusing the report, filed in a “sealed cover”, the court sought a further status report, giving the state police three weeks to submit it.
However, it rejected a request by parties from the other side for a copy of the report, filed today, and ordered the Court Registry to put it again in the sealed cover.
The court also declined to entertain a plea by student unions for an order permitting election to be held as per the earlier norms in Kerala University, scheduled for later this month. In fact, the issue of union elections reached the apex court after Kerala University had declined to recognise the unions, resulting in setting up of the Lyngdoh panel by it for laying down norms for these elections.
