Supreme Court notice to Centre on plea of mothers of Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea filed by mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi, who had allegedly committed suicide following alleged caste-based discrimination, seeking to end such bias in universities and other higher education institutions across the country.
While Vemula, a Ph.D scholar at Hyderabad Central University had committed suicide on January 17, 2016, following alleged caste bias, Tadvi, a tribal student at TN Topiwala National Medical College, committed suicide on May 22 this year due to alleged caste-based discrimination by three doctors in her college.
A bench of Justices N V Ramana and Ajay Rastogi issued notice on the plea and sought response from the Centre in four weeks. Senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for both the mothers, said there are UGC regulations but they are not being implemented.
She said there are documented incidents of suicides taking place in university campuses.
The petitioners have sought to enforce the fundamental rights, particularly the Right to Equality, Right to Prohibition of Discrimination against caste, and the Right to Life.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
