Uttarakhand HC: Institution head will be responsible if freshers ragged

Dehradun: Taking cognisance of ragging at Haldwani’s Dr Sushila Tiwari Government Medical College where 27 first-year medical students were seen walking in a line with downcast eyes, shaved heads and hands tied behind backs in March 2022 (the same students allegedly ragged freshers the next year), the Uttarakhand HC on Tuesday said “if something like this happens again, the head of the institution will be held responsible”.

After hearing a petition and taking cognisance of a TOI report on the incident, a division bench of Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Alok Kumar Verma directed every university to constitute a monitoring cell on ragging and asked the state government to constitute district-level anti-ragging committees, to be headed by DMs within two weeks.

When a video of the first ragging incident went viral in March last year, the institution had tried to brush it under the carpet, saying the students had shaved their heads due to “dandruff, allergies, and psoriasis”. However, the HC did its own probe and a two-member committee confirmed ragging.

In the second incident in December 2022, an anti-ragging committee of the college found the ragging victims of last year had ragged freshers this year. “It’s seen that ragging is perpetuated by each successive batch, as if to take revenge for the torment that they have been subjected to, by their seniors,” the HC said.