The Madras High court has, on Tuesday, reserved the judgment on the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that was filed in the judicial bench to demand independent CBI probe into the suicides at the premises of IIT Madras.

On November 29th, about three weeks after the death of Fathima Latheef, a first-year postgraduate student of IIT Madras who had committed suicide in the premises of the institute on November 9th, 2019, the Kerala Unit of Yuva Janathadal has approached the Madras High court to seek the independent CBI probe into the deaths of about 14 students who had committed suicide in IIT Madras premises since 2006. 

The National President of the party has said that the institute has reported with 14 suicides since 2006 - five from Andhra Pradesh, three from Kerala, two from Tamil Nadu, two from Uttar Pradesh, one each from Puducherry and Jharkhand have hanged themselves to the death in the past thirteen years after they had allegedly gone through the discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, and language. He stated that despite the series of uncertainty, the management of the institution has been failing to implement stable and concrete steps to derive the reasons behind the suicides and to prevent it.

The petition has taken into the hearing by the high court bench comprising of Justices Sathyanarayanan and Hemalatha and the petitioner had argued that the investigations into the deaths of these students should be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation to expose the allegations on the alleged tortures and harassment faced by the students. The bench has asked the government why the case has not been transferred to CB-CID? 

By placing its response, the counsel of the state government has stated that the mysterious death of Fathima Latheef has currently been investigating by the special team of Central Crime Branch and cited that the CB-CID's probe is not required at present. With accord to the response from the state government, the High court bench had postponed the verdict of the petition by noting that the special team is yet to disclose its final report on the investigations and the probe can't be transferred to CBI under the grounds of assumption.

On November 9th, Fathima Latheef, a native of Kerala who was pursuing her first-year postgraduate course in Humanities and Social Services had allegedly committed suicide in the premises of the institute and while it was initially told that she could have hanged herself by citing low marks in the examinations, her suicide note that was in her mobile phone had revealed that she could have been harassed by her department and by the professors.