Reframing India’s student suicide crisis as a ‘constitutional injury’

THE DEATHS OF AYUSH ASHNA AND ANIL KUMAR, both Scheduled Caste students at IIT Delhi, brought this crisis to constitutional scrutiny. After the authorities refused to register First Information Reports despite allegations of caste-based discrimination, the families approached the Supreme Court. In a landmark decision in March, earlier this year — Amit & Ors v. Union of India — the Court ordered creation of a National Task Force (‘NTF’) to examine mental health and discriminatory practices in higher education institutions, marking a turning point in Indian educational jurisprudence.

This essay builds on that moment. It argues that student suicides are not merely personal tragedies but constitutional injuries. It traces three illustrative cases, the suicide of an Odisha B.Ed student, a Navi Mumbai nursing student, and several in IIT Delhi, to show how institutions, through legal evasion and administrative apathy, fail their duties of care. In doing so, it maps a socio-legal argument for reconceiving institutional accountability through the lens of constitutional dignity, equality, and mental health justice.

The death of a student by suicide is often narrated through a vocabulary of personal failure, stress, anxiety, academic pressure, or familial expectations. These individualised accounts, while not inaccurate, are deeply insufficient. When such deaths recur across institutions and social locations, they point not to isolated breakdowns but to structural neglect. 

In India, elite education remains a promise of transformation, especially for first-generation learners, Dalit and Adivasi students, women, and those from working-class families. When these institutions become sites of silence, humiliation, and abandonment, the harm is not merely psychological; it is constitutional.