The Supreme Court has mandated that 16 government universities on the island produce a report by November 10, 2023, detailing the ragging occurrences that have been reported at their institutions over the past three years and the steps taken to avoid them.
This decision was made after Pasindu Harshana de Silva filed a Fundamental Rights (FR) petition, in which he alleged that his fundamental human rights had been violated as a result of the serious wounds he had received as a first-year student at Sri Jayewardenepura University as a result of a group of senior students throwing a large tyre at him in 2020.
Yesterday (11) the case was heard by a three-judge Supreme Court panel made up of Justices Buwaneka Aluvihare, Shiran Gunaratne, and Priyantha Fernando.
Senior State Counsel Avanthi Perera, who appeared on behalf of the Attorney General, informed the court that the Attorney General had chosen not to represent all state colleges on the island, who had been named as respondents to the pertinent petition.
The Attorney General’s Department would advise the respondents to submit the pertinent reports to the court through private solicitors, the Senior State Counsel stated.
The Minister of Higher Education, the University Grants Commission, and the Inspector General of Police, who are also respondents in the lawsuit, would all continue to be represented by the Attorney General, she added.
The Kelaniya, Sri Jayewardenepura, and Colombo universities were represented by private solicitors, and they have asked the Supreme Court for extra time to produce the reports.
Additionally, President’s Counsel Shavindra Fernando, who represented the petitioning party before the court, said that his client requested the court to rule that a set of guidelines be created in order to prevent similar regrettable incidents from occurring at universities in the future, adding that the petitioner does not seek any monetary compensation.
As a result, the Supreme Court judge bench that ordered the case to be recalled on November 10, 2023 also asked 16 state universities, including the Universities of Colombo, Kelaniya, Peradeniya, Vavuniya, Sabaragamuwa, and North-Western, to submit the pertinent reports pertaining to the case on that date.
