A joint petition has been filed by mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Union government and the University Grants Commission to take steps to end caste-based discrimination in varsities and in higher learning institutions.
They urged the court to order the strict enforcement of and compliance with the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2012.
Abeda Salim Tadvi is the mother of Payal Tadvi, a tribal student of TN Topiwala National Medical College, who committed suicide on May 22, 2019, after being subjected to caste-based discrimination allegedly by her upper-caste peers. Radhika Vemula, a co-petitioner is the mother of Rohith Vemula, a PhD scholar at Hyderabad Central University who committed suicide on January 17, 2016, after being subject to caste-based discrimination in the university.
Their petition claimed that there have been several incidents of caste-based discrimination against members of the SC, ST community which reflected flagrant non-compliance with the existing norms and regulations in place for the same.
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