Supreme Court verdict on student suicides should move the needle on mental health of youngsters

Indian Express

4 days ago

On July 25, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment of profound constitutional and societal significance. A Division Bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta addressed one of the most tragic, yet inadequately acknowledged issues, confronting Indian society today: The alarming rise in student suicides. The Court invoked its constitutional authority to acknowledge the scale of the mental health crisis in educational institutions and provided an actionable framework for redress.
The SC has issued 15 binding directions applicable to all schools, colleges, hostels, and coaching centres across the country, aimed at institutionalising mental-health support and safeguarding the psychological well-being of students. The gravity of its concern was encapsulated in the apex court's unequivocal recognition that the current education system, given its obsession with competitive examinations, has turned toxic. The pursuit of learning — ideally a joyful and liberating experience — has been reduced to a mechanical, high-pressure ordeal centred on ranks, grades, and performance metrics. The soul of education, the Court observed, has been 'distorted'.
The verdict asks all educational institutions to adopt a uniform mental-health policy, taking cues from existing frameworks such as the UMMEED Draft Guidelines, the Ministry of Education's MANODARPAN initiative, and the National Suicide Prevention Strategy. The Court has also made it compulsory for schools and coaching centres with more than 100 students to appoint at least one qualified counsellor or psychologist. The judgment directs educational spaces to avoid harmful practices such as batch segregation based on academic performance, public shaming, or setting unrealistic academic goals. Among other things, the Court also directed institutions to have written protocols for emergency mental health referrals and display suicide prevention helpline numbers prominently in hostels, classrooms, and websites.
This verdict has not emerged in a vacuum. It's a direct judicial response to the devastating data published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its 2022 report, 'Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India'. The figures are chilling: 1,70,924 suicides were recorded in 2022, of which 13,044 were students, translating to nearly 36 student suicides per day. Alarmingly, 2,248 of these deaths were attributed to examination failure alone. Over the past two decades, student suicides have more than doubled. Between 2011 and 2022, suicides among male students rose by 99 per cent, and among female students by 92 per cent.
Despite this spiraling crisis, institutional mechanisms for mental-health support within India's educational architecture have remained fragmented, voluntary, and largely ineffective. The Supreme Court's judgment seeks to bridge this gap, much like it did in Vishaka vs State of Rajasthan (1997), where the absence of legislative measures on workplace sexual harassment compelled the Court to issue interim guidelines. In Vishaka, those judicial directions later became the blueprint for a central statute. The present judgment has similar transformative potential. It fills a policy vacuum, asserts constitutional accountability, and paves the way for legislative reform.
In terms of timelines, the judgment is characteristically firm. All states and Union Territories are required to notify appropriate rules and regulations within two months, while the Union government must submit a compliance affidavit within 90 days. The timeline signals the Court's intent to not merely issue guidelines but to ensure they are implemented.
The constitutional implications of the verdict are manifold. First, it reinforces the idea that the Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution includes the right to mental well-being and a dignified educational environment. Second, it builds on the Court's jurisprudence in Unnikrishnan JP vs State of Andhra Pradesh and Mohini Jain vs State of Karnataka, where the Right to Education was read as an essential component of the Right to Life. The SC has now brought mental health within the domain of constitutional protection, making it not merely a policy concern but a justiciable right.
The verdict also critiques the structural violence that's inherent in India's educational ecosystem. Coaching centres have become infamous for their conveyor-belt pedagogy and relentless pressure. The commodification of education, where success is narrowly defined by entrance exam results, has eroded the developmental and humanistic objectives of learning. By compelling educational institutions to re-centre their focus on student well-being, the Court is reminding the nation that education is a public good, not a private transaction.
However, while the judgment lays a robust foundation, the real challenge lies ahead in its enforcement. Judicial pronouncements, however well-intentioned, require vigilant implementation. The failure of several state governments to fully operationalise the Vishaka Guidelines until the enactment of the 2013 legislation is a cautionary tale. The central and state governments must now rise to the occasion.
More importantly, educational institutions must internalise the fact that compliance is not merely a legal compulsion but a moral imperative. Preventing even a single suicide means preserving a future, shielding a family from unbearable loss, and affirming the constitutional promise of a life of dignity.
The writer is a Kashmir-based lawyer and national president of J&K Students Association