Life is not a series of tests: SC on student suicides

In the first five months of this year, 15 students have died by suicide in Kota, Rajasthan — a coaching hub for students aspiring to join engineering and medical courses.

Earlier this month, a second year BDS student at Sharda University in Greater Noida hanged herself in her hostel room following alleged harassment by two faculty members. A fourth-year mechanical engineering student of IIT Kharagpur died by suicide on July 18 -- fourth such case on the IIT Kharagpur campus since January 2025.

As campus suicides hit national headlines, the Supreme Court has made yet another intervention to fill the "legislative and regulatory vacuum”.

Highlighting lack of a unified, enforceable framework for suicide prevention of students, the Supreme Court on July 25 issued 15-point pan-India guidelines to deal with the malaise afflicting educational institutions and coaching centres across India.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) 2022 report titled “Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India”, the country recorded 1,70,924 reported suicide cases in the year 2022 -- an increase from 2021 figure of 1,64,033 reported suicide cases. The report stated that 7.6%, approximately 13,044 of these cases were student suicides. As many as 2,248 of these deaths were attributed directly to failure in examinations. The number of suicides among students in the last two decades has increased substantially from 5,425 in 2001 to 13,044 in 2022. In the decade commending from 2012, male and female student suicides surged to 99% and 92%, respectively, the NCRB data revealed.

There are multiple factors -- individual and systemic, direct and indirect – pushing young minds to take the extreme step. Be it unrealistic academic expectations, impulsivity, social isolation, learning and cognitive disabilities, past trauma or low self-esteem, the problem gets precipitated by experiences of sexual assault, harassment, ragging, bullying, or discrimination on the basis of caste, gender, sexual orientation, or disability -- which continue remains under addressed. Living away from their families in high-pressure environments without adequate emotional support makes them all the more vulnerable.

“In this paradigm, life becomes a series of tests, and failure is seen not as a part of growth but as a devastating end. In a system driven by performance metrics, competition, and institutional rigidity, students are often subjected to immense psychological strain, particularly in environments geared towards high-stakes competitive examinations,” noted the Supreme Court.

Right to mental health is implicit in the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 also reinforces it by recognising every person’s right to access mental health care and protection from inhuman or degrading treatment in mental health settings. Section 18 of the Act guarantees mental health services to all while Section 115 of the Act decriminalises attempt to suicide an acknowledges the need for care and support.

Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which India is a State Party, recognises the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights affirms that this right includes timely access to mental health services and prevention of mental illness, including suicide.

But despite constitutional and international obligations, there’s a legislative and regulatory vacuum as India lacks a unified, enforceable framework for suicide prevention of students in educational institutions, coaching centres, and student-centric environments.

In this backdrop, the Supreme Court’s intervention is a welcome step in view of the gravity of the situation.

The top court’ guidelines can work as a template. Separately, it has also ordered setting up of a National Task Force on mental health concerns of students and prevention of suicides in higher educational institutions.

The culture of silence around mental health must end. Suicides are a preventable form of death. All stakeholders – students, their families, academic institutions and the Government must act in tandem and frame a national strategy to deal with the problem that threatens the very future of India’s young generation.