Lawyer Moves Calcutta High Court Seeking CBI Probe Into South Calcutta Law College Gang-Rape
A Public Curiosity Litigation (PIL) has been filed earlier than the Calcutta Excessive Court docket by Advocate Souma Subhra Ray looking for a probe by the CBI into the gang-rape of a legislation scholar on the premises of South Calcutta Legislation School.
The incident, which allegedly occurred on the evening of June 25, 2025, has triggered widespread outrage. The petition seeks pressing intervention, together with a court-monitored CBI investigation and systemic reforms to handle what he calls a “collapse of campus safety, suppression of protests, and breakdown of rule of legislation.”
The matter got here up earlier than a Division Bench of Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Smita Das De, which issued discover and listed it for listening to on July 3, 2025.
The petitioner describes the act as greater than an remoted crime, characterising it as “a catastrophic breakdown of institutional duty, campus security protocols, and governmental oversight, amounting to a whole abdication of the constitutional responsibility to guard the dignity, liberty, and bodily autonomy of its college students.”
He additional alleges that the sufferer had earlier been subjected to coercion and intimidation. In keeping with the petition, “The sufferer had allegedly been subjected to persistent coercion and intimidation by the accused individuals, who had pressurized her to align herself with sure politically affiliated teams working inside the faculty. Upon her agency refusal to hitch such politically motivated actions, the accused individuals issued threats of grievous hurt, together with threats to kill her and have her mother and father falsely implicated and arrested.” These threats, the petition states, had been made with impunity and reportedly ignored by the faculty administration and native authorities.
The petitioner contends, “Shockingly, regardless of the existence of such hostility, intimidation, and prior complaints, each the faculty administration and native police authorities remained willfully detached and took no preventive or protecting measures by any means.” He submits that “this culpable inaction successfully emboldened the perpetrators and allowed the assault to unfold unchecked, thereby constituting not solely institutional negligence but in addition a direct violation of the sufferer’s basic rights below Article 21 of the Structure of India.”
The petition frames the incident as emblematic of deeper institutional failures. It raises a number of questions for judicial scrutiny: “How was a former scholar permitted entry into the faculty premises after hours, in clear violation of primary entry management protocols? Why had been employees members current on campus gone official faculty hours, with none official function or administrative supervision? What monitoring or safety measures, if any, had been in place to forestall or detect unauthorized entry to delicate areas of the faculty constructing? Why did the faculty administration and native police take no preventive motion, regardless of having been allegedly knowledgeable of threats made in opposition to the sufferer effectively upfront? Why does a reputed legislation faculty lack important surveillance infrastructure, resembling CCTV protection and a functioning safety equipment, particularly in a time the place gender-based violence is on the rise?”
On the alleged politicisation of the establishment, the petitioner notes that the mere indisputable fact that such people might have shut acquaintance or political patronage from members of the ruling institution doesn’t, and ought to not, ipso facto grant them any type of privilege or impunity. “Instructional establishments are usually not political playgrounds, and any such unwarranted affect have to be sternly curtailed in the curiosity of campus security and constitutional governance”, the petition states.
The petition additionally alleges the suppression of peaceable protests within the aftermath of the incident, stating, “The precise to protest is a basic proper of each citizen,” the petitioner submits, “but this proper was trampled by the respondent authorities once they barred protestors from getting into South Calcutta Legislation School. The protestors had been manhandled by police, an motion that’s insupportable in any civil society.” He additional states that protestors, together with feminine college students, had been reportedly manhandled, detained, and silenced in a way wholly incompatible with the tenets of a democratic society ruled by the rule of legislation. Quite than defending demonstrators, the petition alleges, “The police authorities willfully allowed exterior miscreants to infiltrate and disrupt the protest,” which he describes as a “gross miscarriage of justice” that resulted in “a chilling impact on the train of democratic rights.”
Among the many key prayers, the PIL seeks a writ of mandamus directing a correct investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, together with the formation of a judicially-monitored Truth-Discovering Committee, headed ideally by a retired Choose of the Calcutta Court docket, to look at systemic points inside legislation schools vis-à-vis gender security and political exploitation. It additionally requires orders banning ex-students from getting into faculty premises after hours and mandating the implementation of Inner Complaints Committees below the Sexual Harassment of Girls at Office (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and UGC Pointers.
The petition concludes with, “If this Hon’ble Court docket doesn’t intervene instantly, very important proof could also be destroyed, witnesses could also be silenced, and public confidence within the justice system can be severely eroded.”
The matter can be heard subsequent on July 3, 2025.
