Student Suicides: ‘Need accountability, not new law; it’s about well-being, not mental health,’ says NTF chief

In March, taking suo moto cognizance of student suicides at premier institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, the Supreme Court established a National Task Force on Student Mental Health of Students and Prevention of Suicides in Higher Education Institutes, under the chairmanship of retired SC judge, Justice S Ravindra Bhat.

The task force launched a survey – the first-of-its-kind mapping of student well-being across the country – and has received over 16 lakh responses from students, parents, teachers and institutions. Their analysis will offer insights into the factors – academic and financial pressures, caste, ragging, sexual harassment, lack of hostels or canteens, teacher vacancies – causing stress. An interim report is in; the final one will take another six months.

In the meantime, the SC court has issued a set of directives for higher education institutions, and those govern them, based on the interim report. The bench has made institutions responsible for providing safe learning environments for all students. However, just days after, yet another IIT Kanpur student took his own life; this was its second suicide death in a month and ninth in two years.

Before the SC order and the IIT Kanpur student suicide, Justice Bhatt spoke to Academia360 about the NTF survey, existing regulations, the need for monitoring and accountability, and explained why the task force prefers the phrase “well being” to “mental health”. Edited excerpts:

The task force recently submitted its interim report and conducted a survey. What have higher educational institutes told you?

The interim report was submitted to the Supreme Court of India in October 2025, the court is in the process of considering it. Now, our task is to compile all the data from stakeholders, from meeting faculty and students, and surveys that we have just concluded, on December 31. This is empirical data which is important because it is first-of-its-kind.

We have received inputs from 1.2 million students and thousands of faculty, institutions, universities, colleges and the general public. We have to analyse the data, make sense and prepare a final report.

The Supreme court had given us a clear mandate that we have to study the current issue of student suicides from the angle of various stress points, including ragging, gender, caste, ethnicity and region-based discrimination, sexual harassment, academic pressure, financial burdens, mental health stigma, and others.

We found that academic pressure can be of two kinds. The first is subjective and includes the individual’s ability to cope with the kind of challenges students face when they get into these higher education institutions. The second is infrastructural – lack of or inadequate hostel facilities, overcrowding, lack of canteen facilities or inadequate faculty. In some places, we found that there are strict or severe attendance norms.

Many times, 18 and 19 year-old students get into institutes away from home and face a sense of alienation. Some are resilient and cope but many are not able to. This is where the overall environment and support system of an institute become crucial.

We discovered from field visits that a large number of the reserved [posts] are still vacant across institutes. Students from economically weaker or reserved categories would feel comfortable with people from similar backgrounds. But if the number of these people is just one or two out of a faculty of hundred, that sense of alienation could happen. Overall, there is a sense of disempowerment and helplessness among students who feel unheard. While the distance between the teacher and student has increased, the workload has also increased because of the National Education Policy according to faculty members.

In the case of professional institutions, the pressure is too much, like in medicine for instance. When you go to slightly higher levels, like residency, students face problems like sleep deprivation. Many times, scholarships for Dalit, Adivasi or minority students are not released on time which creates pressure.

The task is to compile all the data of existing recommendations, previous reports, rules and regulations, along with our own observations. In theory, institutes would have recruited one or two counsellors but in practice, they may not be available. Hence, the real-time reporting and the reflections of students on the efficacy of the prevailing regulations and implementation will come out.

We have noticed that there are two kinds of problems – if a student asks their teacher to consult a counsellor, they may not excuse them and that impacts attendance. The second problem is physical access. A counselling centre may be accessible but is at a location that can be seen by everyone.

The problem in India today is the layered and nuanced issue of stigmatisation of people who undergo counselling; they are stereotyped as mentally unwell. While some institutes have come out with solutions like emailing the counsellor and receiving a revert with a specific time, the emailing systems come with their issues such as data maintenance and security.

What has the task force recommended in the interim report ?

We have given some recommendations related to filling up faculty and vice chancellor vacancies and faculty sensitisation. We suggested that these leadership positions need to be filled. Most importantly, we made certain suggestions on campus mental health and student-friendly steps.

What did higher educational institutions tell you? Did they cooperate?

I would not like to answer because we still have to interpret the survey data. Also, field visits conducted by different members [of the task force] yielded different experiences which I cannot speak of.

Overall, members of the task force visited some 30-35 places across the country, including North East, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Chandigarh and Delhi.

For a long time many states were not cooperating and many state nodal officers, appointed by the court, couldn't get responses from states and institutions. We received lukewarm responses from one side. However, states from the South, including Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, gave good responses.

To address issues across others, we requested our ex-officio members, including secretaries in the ministries of health and family welfare and higher education for coordination and support. In consequence, higher education institutions from different places such as UP, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh started responding.

Now, we have received responses from all parts of India.

How many have participated?

From an administrative perspective, it would be unfair to comment without analysing the data. Administrations face their own challenges, which are distinct. For instance, an increase of even 50 students puts pressure on hostels, labs, and other facilities. If faculty strength isn’t increased alongside, it strains existing staff. This creates a domino effect, with multiple pressures eventually converging at critical stress points, including personal and family pressures.

The real task was the collection of empirical data and comparing it with the existing rules, regulations and policies because they will indicate exactly how effective they are.

Which type of institutes were reluctant to participate ?

There was some indifference from many institutes all across the country but many were extremely cooperative as well. I do not want to point fingers at any region or institute but some of the premier institutes in engineering and law did not bother initially. We had to constantly run after them and finally, they gave their responses.

The court had suggested that if the institutes don’t cooperate, they would take a strict action.

IITs have seen numerous suicides. Why is it so rampant in these institutes?

I can't pinpoint just one cause but there are probably five or six factors at play. The pressure young students face in these high-calibre programmes is immense, driven by the sheer depth and breadth of the curriculum.

Many get into these institutes after intense coaching, which isn't to say they're not intelligent, but the buildup is real. On top of that, students from reserved or less-privileged backgrounds often get tagged as "failures" by peers if they don't perform well. This creates peer pressure.

Thirdly, many live in hostels and feel alienated. A strong hostel or college student community can pull people up and provide support. But without that sense of belonging, isolation deepens.

Language is definitely a barrier too — especially for those whose prior education wasn't in English.

When will the final report be ready?

We want it to be ready as early as possible, but I can't commit to a specific date as this is a complex task. Most of the data collection and resource compilation is done; now it's about sitting down to analyse the data, write it up, and present the empirical findings with graphs, regional breakdowns, and student-reported causes. That analysis alone could take weeks.

Unlike most reports, which are incident-based and respond to specific events or clusters, this one is institution-based, drawing from an overall survey. We need a fresh approach to paint a nationwide picture.

We also need new solutions. There have been 20 prior reports with 20 sets of recommendations but have they driven any real change? What corrections are needed now? All this is to be discussed.

I think the task force would need about six months to complete it. The court expected the final report by December, but we started in April, right when institutions went on vacation in May and June, followed by new admissions in July.

How effective are existing regulations and policies? What reforms are required ?

We have half a dozen policies and laws and may not need major legal changes. What we need is clearer direction, better oversight on implementation, and real accountability.

Take counsellors, for instance. If regulations say institutions with over 500 students need at least two counselors, with 10 for 2,000 or so, are they actually in place and available full-time? Secondly, are they well-trained and equipped? We have often found that many of them are just appointed and given a fancy title but minimal training. What standards should counsellors meet and is there a standardised training methodology?

Also, is there a monitoring system? We need regular reporting which is centralised, regional, or even district-level. To address all this, there will be short and long-term fixes.

For student complaints and grievances, how effective are the mechanisms? Do we need independent bodies, like those for sexual harassment, to oversee issues like ragging, caste discrimination, or faculty misconduct? Such cases have two sides: the criminal aspect and effective remedies. Also, there may be problems where people may not want to report. People hesitate, especially against faculty, due to power hierarchies and threats of retaliation.

In my view, we must build mechanisms that hold the entire system accountable, which is the key reform we need. I haven't discussed this with the task force yet. The National Suicide Prevention Strategy outlines many remedial measures, but it needs strengthening.

What has been your experience of chairing this task force?

To start with, I would avoid the use of the phrase “mental health" but rather use “well-being”. These are not mental health issues. All these point towards well-being which includes contentment and happiness of the student. This comes from me and my team, which includes experts from clinical psychology, child education, mass education, community health, practicing psychologists, and academics dealing with vulnerable groups like women and those with disabilities.

Students face countless challenges; someone might seem perfectly normal at one point, but mounting external and internal pressures can push them to the extreme step. We don't want to label it as a "mental health" problem. It's a frame of mind triggered when pressures peak and no escape seems possible. We lack data on those who reached that edge but pulled back, or who dropped out to save themselves.

We knew from the start about vulnerabilities like caste or gender, marginalisation due to disability, ragging, and social pressures. But family expectations, financial shortages, poor hostel facilities, inadequate living quarters or a canteen or even attending classes without breakfast compound it all.

The issue is that our society overvalues certain education fields — medicine, engineering, or sciences — which are vital for a rapidly-developing nation. Yet individual aptitude and happiness matter too. We can't typecast IIT or all AIIMS students as the only "bright" ones. People have their own genius! Society rightly celebrates these institutions for propelling our country forward but growth also comes from administrators, lawyers, social scientists, humanities researchers, psychologists, and more. The world thrives on diverse thinking and functioning.

Broadly, we must recognise students as our greatest asset. If we let them pursue happiness on their own terms and build supportive institutions, we will see a real change. We've become sensitised to these issues through this process.

If you know someone – friend or family member – at risk of suicide, please reach out to them. Those in distress or having suicidal thoughts or tendencies could seek help and counselling by calling 9820466726 or visiting AASRA’s official website or can call iCALL on 9152987821. Here are some more helpline numbers of suicide prevention organisations that can offer emotional support to individuals and families.