IITs, IIMs sidestep student suicide survey? Supreme Court issues warning

India’s Supreme Court has issued a warning to many prestigious colleges of the country to participate in its survey on student suicidies. The institutes, which include IITs, IIMs, NITs and even AIIMS, have reportedly not responded to the court’s calls for their inputs.

Reports say that the survey has been sent to more than 58,000 colleges across the country. But despite repeated reminders, more than 54,000 are yet to respond.

This entire exercise is being undertaken in the interest of the students and it is expected of all these institutes to render their full cooperation and assistance to enable the National Task Force to finalise its interim report, if not final, on the subject," the bench said.

The bench noted that the Centre had four times informed all these institutes to cooperate in the survey but till date "there has been no response at their end".

Reports say the list of non-cooperating institutes includes 17 IITs, 15 IIMs, 16 AIIMS and 24 NITs.

"We request the Union of India to once again take up this issue very seriously and impress upon all these institutes to cooperate," the bench added.

The high-level panel, comprised of experts from various fields including psychiatry and clinical psychology, has been tasked with identifying various causes which lead to suicides by students. These include ragging, caste-based discrimination, gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, academic pressure, financial burden, mental health related stigma, discrimination based on ethnicity, tribal identity, disability, sexual orientation, political views and religious belief among others.

So, what exactly is this survey that the Supreme Court wants done? It had appointed a panel to find out the reasons behind rising student suicides in the country. The court had directed the survey to find out the causes and remedy the increasing number of suicides in educational institutions.

And why was it needed? Data says at least 98 students have taken their lives in premier educational institutes since 2018. About 39 were from IITs, 25 from NITs, 25 from central universities and four from IIMs.

The country saw more than 164,000 suicide deaths in 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Students accounted for 8% of those deaths, with failing examinations listed as one of the common reasons.