Ragging is human rights violation: HC

BILASPUR: Chhattisgarh high court has held that ragging is a systematized form of human rights abuse which continues unabated despite it being a cognizable, non-bailable offence. Refusing to grant regular bail to an accused in an alleged ragging case that led to the suicide of a first year MBBS student on Monday, the bench of Justice Sanjay K Agrawal said in his order that cited an apex court order to point out that "ragging in essence is a human rights abuse. Ragging can be in various forms-physical abuse or mental harassment. In present times, shocking incidents of ragging have come to notice." 

The order further quoted "The student is physically tortured or psychologically terrorized. All human beings should be free to claim, as a matter of right, for life if dignity but when it is intentionally or recklessly damaged or departed then the person's human rights are abused; in that sense ragging is the best example of human rights' abuse."

 

The applicant Ankit Patel had moved high court seeking regular bail in connection with criminal case registered against him after Nishant Upadhyaya, a first year MBBS student of Late Lakhiram Agrawal memorial medical college, Raipur, committed suicide, reportedly, due to ragging done by applicant and another accused Hiramani Patel on November 8, 2014. Applicant's counsel Upendra Nath Awasthy submitted that the present applicant is innocent and he has falsely been implicated in the case. He argued that there is no material collected by prosecution to connect the present applicant to the crime. 

Besides, he also pointed out that the applicant himself is a member of anti-ragging committee and there is no reasonable nexus or proximity of the applicant with the suicide committed by Nishant Upadhyaya. 

Opposing the bail plea, public prosecutor Chitranjay Patel submitted that at present the investigation is in its initial stages. He said Facebook messages and cell phone records of the deceased and other students also indicated that there are sufficient incriminating materials against the applicant. 

Elaborating the circumstances of the case, high court dismissed the application saying that it did not consider it to be a fit case for granting the benefit of regular bail.