High Court issues notices to Chaitanya, Narayana colleges

Hyderabad: Taking cognisance of the ongoing suicides of students in Narayana and Chaitanya corporate colleges, the High Court at Hyderabad issued notices to the directors of Narayana and Chaitanya groups asking them to explain their case about gross irregularities in running the institutions and irresponsible handling of suicides by their students. 

The division bench comprising of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice M Ganga Rao issued these notices on Tuesday while hearing the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition converted from a letter written by Dasari Emmanuel of Lok Satta Agitation Society from Prakasam district.  

The bench also issued notices to super speciality hospitals, NIMS in Hyderabad and SVIMS in Tirupathi, after arraigning them as respondents and asked them to assist the court on how to prevent the spate of suicides in these corporate colleges. It also issued notices to the Chief Secretaries of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, their Home Secretaries, Education Secretaries, Intermediate Boards of both the States.

The letter written by the petitioner alleged that the authorities in Andhra Pradesh were not bothering about the gross irregularities of one of these institutions because its head was a Minister in the State government. 

It was alleged that in some of the cases these colleges have been acting in such a high-handed manner that they are not providing access to the parents and kin of the deceased students to see the dead bodies of their beloved ones who committed suicides in these campuses and hostels on account of extreme pressure etc. 

The petitioner also sought immediate closure of the hostels and campuses that have no permissions. He also wanted criminal cases to be registered against these colleges regarding the suicide deaths of  students.