'Explain Delay In Filing Case After Student Suicide': Court To IIT Kharagpur

The Supreme Court has taken a serious note of delay in filing a first information report (FIR) into the death by suicide case of a student in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

IIT officials should appear before the Supreme Court in the next hearing, a bench of Justices JB Padrdiwala and R Mahadevan said.

The Supreme Court said it found an unexplained delay of four days in filing the FIR by the authorities in IIT-Kharagpur. The FIR was also filed only after the court ordered it, the bench said.

"We are informed that the FIR was filed after four days from the date of suicide. The student died by suicide on May 4, whereas the FIR was filed on May 8, that too only when this court on May 6 enquired whether the FIR had been filed or not," the Supreme Court said, and summoned IIT-Kharagpur officials to appear before it in the next hearing.

The Supreme Court also ordered the officer in charge of the police station in Kharagpur that handled the suicide case to be present in the next hearing and explain the reason for the lapse.

The bench gave the orders while looking into death by suicide of students in educational institutions and coaching centres. It sought a status report in a death by suicide case in the coaching hub Kota in Rajasthan.

Previously, the Supreme Court ordered the central government to deposit Rs 20 lakh to set up a National Task Force to prevent death by suicide of students and to give mental health support.

The Supreme Court on March 24 ordered all states and Union Territories to cooperate with the nodal officer concerned and give data and assistance to the officer in case of need.

The judgment came on an appeal filed by the parents of two students who died by suicide in IIT-Delhi, after the Delhi High Court declined to order the filing of an FIR into the matter.