Delhi High Court: The present petition was filed by petitioners under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution to issue an appropriate writ, order or direction including a writ in the nature of mandamus, thereby directing the police authorities or Respondent 6 to register appropriate FIRs in the cases involving the deaths of the sons of Petitioners 2 and 3. Rajnish Bhatnagar, J.*, opined that the allegations levelled by petitioners regarding their sons facing caste-based discrimination, could not be corroborated and nothing came on record to substantiate the same. Therefore, even though the Court was aware of the plight of grieving parents of two young students who took extreme steps and the agony undergone by them, however, after considering the totality of facts and circumstances of the present case, a mandamus could not be issued in a routine manner merely based on sympathy or sentiments.
Background
In the present case, complaints dated 26-07-2023 and 09-09-2023 were filed by petitioners who were the parents of two deceased students of B.Tech (Mathematics and Computing) at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (‘IIT, Delhi’), wherein, it was alleged that first student was found dead on 08-07-2023 and second student was found dead on 01-09-2023 in their respective hostel rooms.
It was alleged that they were murdered with the conspiracy of IIT Faculty members to hide the real facts and both the students had been falsely shown to have committed suicide. Both the students belonged to Scheduled Castes, and they had informed their parents several times regarding caste discrimination by the faculty/staff of IIT, Delhi and therefore, petitioners alleged that the faculty members were trying to save the real accused persons and the police officials were also not investigating the matter in a proper manner. Thereafter, postmortem of first student was conducted, wherein cause of death was held to be “asphyxia as a result of hanging due to ligature”. During enquiry, statements of father, brother, other relatives, and friends of the deceased were recorded in which it was found that the deceased had failed in some of the subjects in the prior semester exams due to which he was under depression. During further enquiry, several other students of IIT, Delhi who belonged to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were also examined, wherein none of them reported any caste-based discrimination against any of the faculty.
In the case of second student, postmortem was conducted wherein the cause of death was held to be “asphyxia consequent to ante-mortem compression of neck by ligature”. During enquiry, statements of the brother, mother, other relatives, and friends of the deceased were recorded who stated that due to scoring less marks in exams, deceased was under stress. Petitioner 1, brother of the second student alleged that there was some kind of bleeding from the ears of the body and blood stains were scattered all over the room and thus, the same did not appear to be an incident of suicide.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court opined that a thorough and detailed enquiry was conducted by the officials wherein it was found that both the students were failing in multiple subjects and as per the statements of their family and friends, both were under pressure to perform better. Moreover, nothing had come up during the enquiry to suggest that the students faced any kind of caste-based discrimination by faculty members/staff in IIT, Delhi. The Court stated that though it was aware of the plight of grieving parents of two young students who took extreme steps and the agony undergone by them, however, the Court could not issue a mandamus based on mere sentiment or sympathy.
The Court took note of the Status Report which showed that no complaint was ever given by any of the two students to the police, SC/ST Cell of IIT Delhi or to any of their friends in Campus regarding any caste-based discrimination being faced by them. Therefore, the allegations levelled by petitioners could not be corroborated and nothing came on record to substantiate the same.
The Court deeply discouraged the growing trend of pressurizing young minds to perform the best in every aspect of life, leading them to take unfortunate steps. The Court opined that it was high time that the faculty and other staff members of IIT make conscious efforts and take endeavours to counsel, encourage, motivate, and invigorate the students. It was of utmost priority to make the young minds understand that though scoring good marks and performing your best was important, but it was not the most important thing in life, and one could certainly give his/her best without succumbing to the pressures or stress of performing better. The most significant way of instilling this into young minds who face challenges every day in the professional and competitive environment of colleges was by teaching them in the very same campus where they spend years of their student lives, the values of prioritizing their health, be it physical or mental, which would also give them the confidence to face every challenge in life.
The Court relied on State of W.B. v. Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights, (2010) 3 SCC 571 and Mithilesh Kumar Singh v. State of Rajasthan, (2015) 9 SCC 795, and after considering the totality of facts and circumstances of the present case, opined that a mandamus could not be issued in a routine manner merely based on sympathy or sentiments and thus dismissed the present petition being devoid of merit.
[Amit Kumar v. Union of India, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 661, decided on 30-01-2024]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioners: Mehmood Pracha, Jatin Bhatt, Harshit S. Gahlot, Advocates
For the Respondents: Rupali Bandhopadhya, ASC; Himanshu Pathak, Sahaj Garg, Samman Kr. Singh, Abhijeet Kumar, Advocates
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