‘What is management doing?’: SC slams IIT Kharagpur, Sharda over student suicides
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday expressed grave concern over the growing number of student suicides in educational institutions, directly questioning the management of IIT Kharagpur and Sharda University for their handling of recent cases. A Bench comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan, while hearing a suo motu case, sought clear accountability from both institutions and criticised their failure to act following prior court directives.
“What is the management doing? Why are students committing suicide?” the Bench asked, as it directed the police departments of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal to submit detailed status reports within four weeks.
In the case of Sharda University, Amicus Curiae Aparna Bhatt informed the court that the father of the deceased second-year BDS student, Jyoti Sharma, had filed an FIR two hours after the incident. A suicide note was recovered, and two individuals have since been arrested. However, the Supreme Court expressed dissatisfaction with the university’s handling of the matter, questioning why the college management had failed to inform the police or the student's family promptly.
“Did the students inform the father? Why didn’t the college management communicate this? Is it not their responsibility to inform the police and the parents immediately?” the court observed, suggesting a serious lapse in administrative responsibility.
In the case of IIT Kharagpur, Bhatt told the Bench that she had received no substantive updates from the local police, prompting further criticism from the court. The top court had earlier, on July 21, taken suo motu cognisance of both suicides, one involving a fourth-year engineering student from IIT Kharagpur, and the other involving Jyoti Sharma at Sharda University in Greater Noida.
The Bench questioned whether the institutions had informed police on time, emphasising that failure to register First Information Reports (FIRs) without delay could attract contempt proceedings.
Ritam Mandal, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student enrolled in a five-year dual degree programme at IIT Kharagpur, died by suicide on July 18. A resident of Kolkata, his death marks the fourth such incident on the IIT Kharagpur campus since January 2025. Earlier this year, on January 12, Shaon Mallick, a third-year electronics engineering student, was also found dead by suicide in his hostel room.
The two cases,one in West Bengal and the other in Uttar Pradesh, have heightened national concern over student mental health and raised serious questions about institutional accountability and the responsibilities of campus administrations.
With IANS inputs
