Supreme Court upholds suspension of PhD scholar from TISS, but allows reinstatement

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the suspension of PhD scholar Ramadas Prini Sivanandan from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences for “repetitive misconduct” and alleged anti-national activities, Live Law reported.

However, the court reduced Ramadas’ two-year suspension to the time that he had already served until Friday and ordered his reinstatement, The Hindu reported.

The bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan noted that Ramadas should be given the opportunity to finish his doctoral studies.

Ramadas welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision in a Facebook post. He said that the denial of education to a student was not only a personal matter, but one that impacts the “fundamental rights of countless students and the question of campus democracy in our higher education system”.

“Though this period has been a tough fight, taking away a significant amount of time from my education and daily life, I am glad that I could also be a small part of the resistance,” he said.

On April 18, 2024, the institute had suspended him from the School of Developmental Studies in its Mumbai campus for two years.

A day after Ramadas was suspended, the Progressive Students’ Forum had claimed that the action was taken because he had participated in protests against the Bharatiya Janata Party government.

The students’ forum claimed that Ramadas, who is also a student leader, had...

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