Prevention of Ragging

Prevention and prohibition of Ragging in technical Institutions, Universities including Deemed to be Universities imparting technical education.

F.No. 37-3/Legal/AICTE/2009 – In exercise of the powers conferred under Section 23 read with Section 10 (b), (g), (p) and (q) of AICTE Act, 1987, the All India Council for Technical Education, hereby makes the following Regulations:-

1. Short title and commencement:-

(i) These Regulations may be called the All India Council for Technical Education (Prevention and Prohibition of Ragging in Technical Institutions, Universities including Deemed to be Universities imparting technical education) Regulations 2009.

(ii) They shall come into force on the date of the notification.

2. Objective:-

To root out ragging in all its forms from technical institutions, Universities including deemed to be Universities imparting technical education in the country by prohibiting it by law, preventing its occurrence by following the provisions of these Regulations and punishing those who indulge in ragging in spite of prohibition and prevention as provided for in these Regulations and the appropriate law in force.

3. Definitions:-

(a) “Act” means the All India Council for Technical Education Act 1987 (52 of 1987);

(b) “Technical Institution” means the institution of Government, Government Aided and Private (self financing) institutions conducting the courses/programmes in the field technical education, training and research in Engineering, Technology including MCA, Architecture, Town Planning, Management, Pharmacy, Hotel Management & Catering Technology, Applied Arts & Crafts and such other programmes and areas as notified by the Council from time to time;

(c) ‘University” means a University defined under clause (f) of section 2 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 and includes an institution deemed to be a University under section 3 of that Act.

(d) All other words and expressions used herein and not defined but defined in the All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987 (52 of 1987), shall have the meanings respectively assigned to them in the said Act;

4. Directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India Regarding curbing the menace of Ragging:-The Raghvan Committee constituted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in SLP No. 24295/2006 has submitted its detailed report to the Hon’ble Supreme Court on 7.5.2007. The Hon’ble Supreme Court vide its Order dated 16.5.2007 has passed the following order in the matter:-

“We have perused the Report of the Committee constituted pursuant to this Court’s order to suggest remedial measures to tackle with the problem of ragging in educational institutions. An elaborate report has been submitted by the Committee headed by Dr. R. K. Raghavan. According to the Committee, the following factors need to be focused to tackle with the problem:-

1. Primary responsibility for curbing ragging rests with academic institutions themselves.

2. Ragging adversely impacts the standards of higher education.

3. Incentives should be available to institutions for curbing the menace and there should be disincentives for failure to do so.

4. Enrolment in academic pursuits or a campus life should not immunize any adult citizen from penal provisions of the laws of the land.

5. Ragging needs to be perceived as failure to inculcate human values from the schooling stage.

6. Behavioral patterns among students, particularly potential ‘raggers’, need to be identified.

7. Measures against ragging must deter its recurrence.

8. Concerned action is required at the level of the school, higher educational institution, district administration, University, State and Central Governments to make any curb effective.

9. Media and the Civil Society should be involved in this exercise.

The Committee has made several recommendations. For the present, we feel that the following recommendations should be implemented without any further lapse of time:-

1. The punishment to be meted out has to be exemplary and justifiably harsh to act as a deterrent against recurrence of such incidents.

2. Every single incident of ragging where the victim or his parent/guardian or the Head of Institution is not satisfied with the institutional arrangement for action, a First Information Report must be filed without exception by the institutional authorities with the local policy authorities. Any failure on the part of the institutional authority or negligence or deliberate delay in lodging the FIR with the local police shall be construed to be an act of culpable negligence on the part of the institutional authority. If any victim or his parent/guardian of ragging intends to file FIR directly with the police, that will not absolve the institutional authority from the requirement of filing the FIR.

3. Courts should make an effort to ensure that cases involving ragging are taken up on priority basis to send the correct message that ragging is not only to be discouraged but also to be dealt with sternness.

5. Various Types of Ragging:- The Raghavan Committee constituted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court has, inter-alia, mentioned the following types of ragging:-

1. Ragging has several aspects with, among others, psychological, social, political, economic, cultural, and academic dimensions.

2. Any act that prevents, disrupts or disturbs the regular academic activity of a student should be considered with in the academics related aspect of ragging; similarly, exploiting the services of a junior student for completing the academic tasks assigned to an individual or a group of seniors is also an aspect of academics related ragging prevalent in many institutions, particularly in the technical institutions.

3. Any act of financial extortion or forceful expenditure burden put on a junior student by senior students should be considered an aspect of ragging for ragging economic dimensions.

4. Any act of physical abuse including all variants of it: sexual abuse, homosexual assaults, stripping, forcing obscene and lewd acts, gestured, causing bodily harm or any other danger to health or person can be put in the category of ragging with criminal dimensions.

5. Any act or abuse by spoken words, emails, snail-mails, blogs, public insults should be considered with in the psychological aspects of ragging. This aspect would also include deriving perverted pleasure, vicarious or sadistic thrill from actively or passively participating in the discomfiture to others; the absence of preparing ‘freshers’ in the run up to their admission to higher education and life in hostels also can be ascribed as a psychological aspect of ragging – coping skills in interaction with seniors or strangers can be imparted by parents as well. Any act that affects the mental health and self-confidence of students also can be described in terms of the psychological aspects of ragging.

6. The political aspect of ragging is apparent from the fact that incidents of ragging are low in institutions which promote democratic participation of students in representation and provide an identity to students to participate inn governance and decision making within the institute bodies.

7. The human rights perspective of ragging involves the injury caused to the fundamental right to human dignity through humiliation heaped on junior students by seniors; often resulting in the extreme step of suicide by the victims.

8. Actions to be taken against students for indulging and abetting in Ragging in technical institutions Universities including Deemed to be University imparting technical education:-

1. The punishment to be meted out to the persons indulged in ragging has to be exemplary and justifiably harsh to act as a deterrent against recurrence of such incidents. The students who are found to be indulged in ragging should be debarred from taking admission in any technical institution in India.

2. Every single incident of ragging a First Information Report (FIR) must be filed without exception by the institutional authorities with the local police authorities.

3. Depending upon the nature and gravity of the offence as established by the Anti-Ragging Committee of the institution, the possible punishments for those found guilty of ragging at the institution level shall be any one or any combination of the following:-

(i) Cancellation of admission

(ii) Suspension from attending classes

(iii) Withholding/withdrawing scholarship/fellowship and other benefits

(iv) Debarring from appearing in any test/examination or other evaluation process

(v) Withholding results

(vi) Debarring from representing the institution in any regional, national or international meet, tournament, youth festival, etc.

(vii) Suspension/expulsion from the hostel

(viii) Rustication from the institution for period ranging from 1 to 4 semesters

(ix) Expulsion from the institution and consequent debarring from admission to any other institution.

(x) fine of Rupees 25,000/-

(xi) Collective punishment: when the persons committing or abetting the crime of ragging are not identified, the institution shall resort to collective punishment as a deterrent to ensure community pressure on the potential raggers.

4. The institutional authority shall intimate the incidents of ragging occurred in their premises along with actions taken to the Council and immediately after occurrence of such incident and inform the status of the case from time to time.

UGC REGULATIONS ON CURBING THE MENACE OF RAGGING IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, 2009.

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