BASL FR petition: Groundswell initiative for creation of zero tolerance ragging culture

THE Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) should receive the nation encomia for filing a fundamental rights petition under case No. SC/FR/101/2025 to the Supreme Court (SC) with a view to eradicating the ragging menace from Sri Lankan universities. It is a timely initiative at a time when all the stakeholders display a sense of passivity and ignorance in agape and abdicated their responsibilities.

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It has urged the SC to hold the responsible institutions and officials to account, enforce anti-ragging laws and regulations strictly, mandate specific guidelines to protect students and to recognise the right of every student to pursue university education in dignity and safety. The uncivilised ragging culture is an aberration which should be abhorred once and for all, with the full force of the law.

The petition highlights systematic and institutional failures including repeated inaction and a culture of impunity for the students to resort to barbaric ragging. It states that the ragging violates the fundamental rights to equal protection of the law, freedom from torture under section Articles 12(1) and 11 of the Constitution. In particular, the petitioners allege the failure of Sabaragamuwa University, the University Grant Commission (UGC), the Police and others (69 respondents) to enforce anti-ragging laws and to protect students.

It is a well-known fact that any form of ragging constitutes an offence punishable by law in terms of the Prohibition of Ragging and Other Forms of Violence Act No. 20 of 1998 and the Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Treatment or Punishment Act No. 22 of 1994. The UGC has promptly complied with the statutory enactments referred to above and issued circular instructions on numerous occasions via Circular No. 919 of 15 January 2010, Circular No. 946 of 10 February 2011, 12/2019, 04/2020 to the Vice Chancellors (VCs) to act swiftly in case of the breach of law. The malady is not the paucity of legislative protection but the sheer negligence and do-not-care attitude of the enforcement authorities.