Will the Supreme Court ever effectively confront ‘caste’ in India’s student suicide problem?

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.

Even as it missed critically engaging with caste in Amit Kumar, intervention in a separate batch of challenges brought to the Court by the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi, specifically on the issue of caste discrimination in HEIs, did result in the Union government notifying the fresh UGC Regulations 2026 earlier this month, which rectified various lacunae of its preceding regulation. 

Yet, another new set of petitions, in the wake of a hate campaign and protests against the new Regulations (resulting in the Supreme Court staying the Regulations today), has set off yet another stream of litigation on the same question: how, and to what extent, can the Supreme Court confront the ‘caste’ issue head on when it comes to the life, education and aspirations of millions of students from marginalised communities in India’s universities and colleges?

How the Amit Kumar case had come about: Two suicides and no FIR

First on July 8, 2023, and then on September 1, 2023, Ayush Ashna and Anil Kumar, both Dalit students admitted in IIT Delhi, were found dead in their respective hostel rooms. Soon after, parents of both students filed written complaints to the police, alleging murder and caste discrimination by faculty members at IIT Delhi, and for registration of a case under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The police refused to file an FIR. Advocate Mehmood Pracha, representing one of the parent couples, then sent a legal notice to the Chief Secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi to take action against the police. According to the submissions made by the petitioners in the Court,  the police had only conducted an inquiry under Section 174 of Code of Criminal Procedure, and reached a conclusion that both the students committed suicide due to depression and closed the case.