ON JANUARY 15, 2026, TWO DAYS BEFORE the decadal anniversary of the passing of Rohith Vemula, and only two weeks before it stayed the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations 2026, which rectified various lacunae of its preceding regulation, the Supreme Court had delivered a crucial order in Amit Kumar v. Union of India, a case arising from the alleged suicide of two Dalit students at IIT Delhi. The order, delivered by a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan, was based on the interim report submitted by the National Task Force (‘NTF’), which seeks to address mental health concerns and prevent suicide incidents in Higher Education Institutions (‘HEI’), constituted by the same bench in a judgment delivered in March, 2025.
Using its powers under Article 142, the Court gave effect to various critical recommendations of the NTF interim report regarding suicide prevention and mental health support for students, such as maintenance of a Sample Registration System data on student suicides, and differentiation of school and college students in the Natinal Crime Record Bureau’s (‘NCRB’) data on student suicides. The Court also directed the NTF to formulate a model Standard Operating Procedure (‘SOP’) on implementing these recommendations.
However, while the Amit Kumar order reflected a clear picture on the broader reasons for suicide in educational institutions, its lack of engagement with causes, such as caste-based discrimination, the dehumanized corporate model of education and the shrinking of democratic spaces in India’s universities was glaring.
