During the hearing before the vacation bench of Justices Arif S Doctor and Somasekhar Sundaresan, TISS argued that Ramadas had bypassed an available alternative remedy by not appealing to the vice-chancellor. The institute’s response came after Ramadas sought the court’s intervention to revoke the April 18 suspension order from TISS’s School of Developmental Studies.
Mumbai, Maharashtra: Today (21st May): Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) requested the dismissal of a plea filed by Dalit PhD student Ramadas K S, who is challenging his suspension at the Bombay High Court. The suspension was due to alleged “repetitive misconduct and anti-national activities”.
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During the hearing before the vacation bench of Justices Arif S Doctor and Somasekhar Sundaresan, TISS argued that Ramadas had bypassed an available alternative remedy by not appealing to the vice-chancellor. The institute’s response came after Ramadas sought the court’s intervention to revoke the April 18 suspension order from TISS’s School of Developmental Studies.
They also stated that a high-level committee had been established to handle serious student misconduct, as per a March 14 resolution by the Administration Committee.
In its affidavit, submitted by Registrar Narendra Mishra, TISS stated that according to the 2016-2017 PhD student handbook, the Director of the Institute (now vice-chancellor) serves as the appellate authority for decisions made by the Empowered Committee.
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Senior advocate Mihir Desai, along with advocate Lara Jesani, representing Ramadas, argued that no such alternate remedy existed and urged the court to provide interim relief. They highlighted that the student’s central government scholarship had been halted due to the suspension, making his financial situation untenable.
Ramadas contended that the committee’s inquiry was arbitrary, lacked due process, and did not provide him a chance for a personal hearing. He further denied the institute’s claims, stating that the decision by the high-level committee exceeded the institute’s policies and that no provision for appeal against the suspension was mentioned in the current handbook.
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TISS argued that Ramadas’s approach to the high court without utilizing the internal appeal process amounted to an abuse of the legal process. However, Ramadas countered that TISS was misleading the court by referring to an outdated handbook that was neither distributed to students nor available online. He pointed out that the 2023-2024 handbook did not mention the appeal process to the vice-chancellor.
The court has scheduled the next hearing on June 18.
