Latest news with #KeralaProhibitionofRagging(Amendment)Bill
Time of India
2 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Ragging rules ready for roll-out
T'puram: When new laws are cleared in the assembly, departments usually take months, sometimes years, to frame the fine print rules that make them work. The home department has chosen to invert that script. Even before the Kerala Prohibition of Ragging (Amendment) Bill, 2025 reaches the floor of the House, a detailed set of Kerala Prohibition of Ragging Rules, 2025 has been prepared, all but guaranteeing that the moment the bill is voted through, the regime will switch on without a pause. The draft rules run to 11 sections and leave little to guesswork. They start by welding the proposed state law to the country's new criminal code. "The criminal offences mentioned under Section 2(b)(iii) of the Act are having the same meaning as defined under the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita 2023," the preamble declares, before roping in the NDPS Act, the IT Act, and Pocso for good measure. Punishments, it promises, will be imposed "by adopting the procedures enshrined in Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. " In other words, ragging probes will move under the same evidentiary and procedural yardsticks as any serious criminal investigation. Unlike the broader amendment act, which sets out new offences and higher penalties, the rules drill into daily campus life. Every college and school must convene an anti-ragging committee headed by the principal but the rules go further from day one of an academic year, the principal "shall obtain an affidavit from the students and parents to the effect that the student… would not indulge in the act or abet the act of ragging," and must convene a strategy meeting of wardens, parents, police, and district officials to map trouble spots. Notice board posters warning of penalties are mandatory, and heads of institutions are told to give adequate publicity to the law prohibiting ragging. The anti ragging squad a body composed only of insiders with no outside representation is instructed "to make surprise raids, checks on hostels, and other places vulnerable to incidents of ragging." If an incident is reported, the squad must hold an on-the-spot inquiry, allow both sides to present evidence based on the principles of natural justice, and hand its findings to the committee that will decide punishments. In a nod to collective responsibility, the draft warns that when culprits cannot be pinpointed "the institution shall resort to collective punishment." Teachers are not the only adults conscripted. Each campus must run a mentoring cell; the rules specify the curious ratio of one mentor for every six freshers and one senior mentor for every six junior mentors, with faculty expected to keep the pyramid intact. At the top of the new enforcement pyramid sits a state level monitoring cell, backed by a state nodal officer with authority to receive "distress messages" in real time. The cell can recommend that govt funds or scholarships be withheld from institutions that drag their feet. Where a college beyond Plus Two level still fails to act, Regulation 9.2 of the UGC anti-ragging code will kick in another signal that state and central frameworks have been stitched together to avoid jurisdictional cracks. A hostel-level punishment can be challenged before the district educational officer, whose own orders rise to the deputy director of education, and so on up to the director general of education. Higher education institutions must follow the UGC's own appellate route, ensuring parity with national rules. Crucially, the document stakes a claim to immediate viability. Because the procedural nuts and bolts are already in place, officials say the moment the assembly passes the amendment bill, colleges cannot plead lack of clarity.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Body shaming, digital abuse punishable under Kerala's new anti-ragging law
Representative photo THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala govt is set to introduce the Kerala Prohibition of Ragging (Amendment) Bill, 2025, overhauling its two-decade-old anti-ragging legislation. This move comes in the wake of the death of J S Siddharthan — a student of Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Pookode, Wayanad, at his hostel last February — which highlighted critical loopholes in the existing 1998 Act. For the first time, the revised bill explicitly defines ragging to include body shaming, psychological harassment, and digital abuse, making them punishable under law. Harassment through internet or any other electronic mode will now be a cognisable offence. The amendment broadens scope of ragging to encompass a wide array of criminal acts, such as abetment, criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, and rioting.
The Hindu
13-07-2025
- The Hindu
Body shaming, forcing liquor and drugs, online ragging made punishable in Kerala draft anti-ragging bill
Body shaming, asking a student to do any act or perform something, which he/she will not do in the ordinary course and forcing a fresher to use tobacco, liquor and prohibited/scheduled narcotic substances will be deemed as an act of ragging, according to a draft bill being considered by the Kerala government. The draft bill, the Kerala Prohibition of Ragging (Amendment) Bill, has also brought 'any form of ragging committed through the internet or in any digital mode' under the ambit of the criminal act of ragging for which severe punishment has been prescribed. Ragging including any form of ragging committed through internet or digital mode shall be a cognizable offence. The drat Bill, while amending some of the key provisions of the principal act, Kerala Prohibition of Ragging Act, has widened its ambit to cover all the educational institutions including universities, deemed to be university, including teaching departments, higher educational institutions, schools and other institutions under general education department, elements and constituent units of such institutions, all their premises in Kerala. Also Read | Six students booked for ragging junior in Kerala's Kozhikode Teaching branches of all government departments, institutions of national importance established by an Act of Parliament, Central Universities, and all coaching and tuition centres have been brought under the definition of educational institutions. The draft legislation also covers academic and residential premises of all such institutions, besides the playgrounds, canteens located within and outside the campuses, bus stands, home stays, all means of public and private transportation facilities accessed by students for the pursuit of studies in such institutions in Kerala. A host of criminal acts committed as part of the ragging including abetment to ragging, criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, rioting, public nuisance, and committing obscene and sexual acts committed while ragging will come under the ambit of the draft Bill. Causing bodily harm during the act of ragging, stripping, theft, extortion, dishonest misappropriation of property, criminal breach of trust, criminal trespass, criminal intimidation will also come under the scope of the Bill, according to the draft legislation. The State had witnessed a series of public protests following the death of J. S. Sidharthan, a 20-year-old student. He was found dead at the College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Pookode, Wayanad, in February 2024, allegedly following brutal ragging. Recently, the Kerala High Court had asked the State government to provide a copy of the draft Anti-Ragging (Amendment) Bill, 2025, to the Kerala State Legal Services Authority and the University Grants Commission on a petition filed by the Authority.
