SC directs UGC to collate complaints of on-campus caste discrimination raised in varsities

Supreme Court directs UGC to collect data on caste discrimination complaints in higher education institutions.

The Supreme Court on Friday (January 3, 2025) directed the University Grants Commission (UGC) to collate the total number of complaints of caste discrimination received under its 2012 Regulations in universities and higher educational institutions across the country.

A Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan gave the Commission six weeks to collect the data on how many Central, State, deemed and private universities and institutions of higher learning have set up Equal Opportunity Cells under the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations of 2012; the number of complaints received by them; and action taken on these grievances.

The order was passed on a petition filed six years ago by the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi, who had appealed to the Supreme Court to act against the “rampant” caste discrimination in universities which claimed their children’s lives.

Rohith Vemula, a PhD scholar at Hyderabad Central University, and Payal Tadvi, a tribal student of Tamil Nadu Topiwala National Medical College, died by suicide in January 2016 and May 2019, respectively, after being subject to on-campus caste bias.

Meanwhile, as a stark reminder that caste bigotry was still claiming lives of young scholars in the country’s higher educational campuses, the family of Darshan Solanki joined hands with the two mothers in the Supreme Court on Friday.

Mr. Solanki, a Scheduled Caste student at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), died by suicide in February 2023. His death was linked to casteist insults he had suffered on campus.

Justice Kant noted the mothers’ case has been in limbo for over six years in the Supreme Court, since 2019. It had come up for hearing only once, in 2022.