SC: Suspend students who rag juniors

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sent out a loud and clear message to students who rag colleagues and said that if they are prima facie found guilty they would be immediately suspended from their institution.
    
The apex court fastened the responsibility of acting against culprits on their respective educational institutes and said it would be "binding" on them to use an iron hand to end the menace.
    
The court said educational institutions will have to take "urgent action" on receiving information on incidents of ragging and "if a student is prima facie found guilty of indulging in ragging he/she would be immediately suspended pending the inquiry".
    
Further, it said that all educational institutions in their admission prospectus should carry instructions with regard to ragging and clearly indicate that those indulging in it could face strict action.
    
The directions to check ragging were based on the recommendations made by an apex court-appointed committee, headed by former CBI Director R K Raghavan, and were delivered by a Bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and M K Sharma, which accepted its report.
    
The Bench asked state governments and Union Territories to act in terms of

guidelines recommended by the committee to end the menace of ragging in educational institutions across the country.  The apex court, which has already banned ragging, said the recommendations made by its committee would be "binding" on all educational institutions.
    
All institutes should take urgent action immediately on receiving information about ragging and inform the police, the
Bench said.    

It said guidelines for ensuring ban on ragging in universities and colleges, shall also apply to colleges under the Medical Council of India, Dental Council of India; polytechnics and those institutes under the Ministry of Agriculture.
    
The court said strict action would be taken against the errant institutions and would be made culpable if any failure, negligence or deliberate delay is found in lodging FIR with the local police.
    
The educational institutions would have to constitute special anti-ragging committees or squads to check the menace.
    
The voluminous report of the Raghavan Committee was placed in the apex court on May 16, 2007 and directions were
passed from time to time on its basis, till it was finally accepted today.
    
The court posted the matter for further hearing in March.