Political parties, media must stop glorifying NEET suicides: Court

Political parties, media must stop glorifying NEET suicides: Court

Sureshkumar.K@timesgroup.com

Chennai: 15.09.2020

Two days after three TN students committed suicide fearing National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the national admission exam for undergraduate medical courses, the Madras high court on Monday observed that media and political parties in the state must stop glorifying NEET suicides.

“If they stop such ‘nonsense’ and stop giving solatium to victims’ families such a trend would decrease,” the court said.

A division bench headed by Justice N Kirubakaran made the observation when advocate A P Suryaprakasam made an urgent mention before the court demanding the court to initiate suo motu contempt proceeding against the Tamil Nadu government for failing to prevent such suicides.

“In 2018, the court directed the state government to take appropriate steps to prevent NEET-related suicides. But the state has failed to implement the order in letter and spirit which led to four more suicides this year,” Suryaprakasam said.

Six ex-judges of HC to Suriya’s defence

A day after Justice S M Subramaniam, a sitting judge of the Madras HC, sent a letter to Chief Justice AP Sahi seeking contempt of court proceedings against actor Suriya for his remark against the Supreme Court order permitting NEET exams during the pandemic, six former judges led by Justice K Chandru made an appeal to the CJ to not initiate any action against the actor. “We are afraid that considering such a statement as contempt of court would be slightly off the mark... an artistic person’s overreaction should not be taken seriously and out of context,” they said. P 5

Not publicising suicides may help reduce them: HC

Responding to the plea, Justice Kirubakaran said the court could only blame media and political parties for glorifying such suicides. “They line up before the victim’s family to give solatium. This suggests that whoever commits such suicide would get money,” he said. “If this is stopped by the media and political parties and no publicity is given for such incidents, it might reduce,” the judge added.

The judge then said the bench could not take suo motu contempt as the 2018 order was passed in a single sitting. Justice Kirubakaran suggested the advocate file a contempt petition if needed.