Kolkata: A PIL was filed at the Calcutta High Court on Monday in connection with the death of a first year Jadavpur University (JU) student, who died under mysterious circumstances after falling from the balcony of a students’ hostel on August 10.
Following a request from the West Bengal Child Rights Commission (WBCRC) chairperson Ananya Chakraborty to media houses on Monday not to name the victim, mentioning the name henceforth is refrained from.
In the PIL filed by Calcutta High Court counsel Sayan Banerjee, it has been alleged that the anti-ragging rules enforced by the University Grants Commission (UGC) are not implemented even at the bare minimum level with the campuses of all state- universities in West Bengal.
The PIL has been admitted and the matter will be heard by the division bench of the Calcutta High Court’s Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya this week.
In the PIL, the petitioner has argued that an anti-ragging committee at the national level was constituted under the chairmanship former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director R.K. Raghavan, which suggested a number of measures to prevent the incidents of ragging and harassment of junior and fresher students within the university campuses.
Accordingly, the UGC had also issued a set of guidelines to be followed in this connection.
However, the petitioner has alleged that from the mysterious death of the fresher at JU it is evident that such guidelines have not followed.
“It is not just in case of JU the same thing is applicable for all the campuses of all the state- run universities in West Bengal,” the petitioner said.
In his PIL, the petitioner has sought an order from the Calcutta High Court directing all state universities to enforce the anti- ragging guidelines strictly within their respective campuses.
The victim’s body was found in front of the balcony of the students’ hostel on August 10 morning and investigations revealed the ragging angle behind the tragedy.
Meanwhile, a team of the anti-ragging cell of the UGC is scheduled to arrive in Kolkata for an on-ground investigation in the matter.
–IANS
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