The mothers of Rohith Vemula and Dr Payal Tadvi, who had committed suicide over alleged caste-based discrimination, have filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking an end to such bias on college and university campuses.
Filed by advocate Sunil Fernandes, the plea seeks a directive to all universities to establish “Equal Opportunity Cells”, on the lines of other existing internal complaints mechanisms, and take strong disciplinary action against victimisation of students or staff members who complain of caste-based discrimination. To ensure objectivity and impartiality, the cell should include members from SC, ST, OBC and independent representatives from NGOs or social activists to ensure objectivity and impartiality in the process, the petition said.
While Vemula, a PhD scholar at Hyderabad Central University, had committed suicide on January 17, 2016, following alleged caste bias, Tadvi, a tribal student at TN Topiwala National Medical College, Mumbai, ended her life on May 22 because of alleged caste-based discrimination by three doctors in her college.
Their mothers have complained of rampant prevalence of caste-based discrimination against members of SC, ST community. There is institutional apathy to caste-based discrimination and flagrant non-compliance with the existing norms and regulations, which they said, are inadequate as they do not properly address the occurrence of caste-based discrimination on campus against teachers and students.
The existing norms fail to provide an independent, unbiased complaint redressal mechanism and do not provide for any punitive sanction on higher educational institutions for failure to take positive steps to prevent discrimination on the basis of caste on campus, the petition said.
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