Gujarat HC orders inquiry after GNLU students share plight on Insta

Social media not only mobilises public opinion but also serves as a platform to alert and initiate judicial probes. Some posts published on Instagram by two Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) students have led to the Gujarat High Court calling for a “high-level inquiry” into the college’s and its faculty’s functioning.

Alarmed by the Gujarat High Court’s orders, the college set up a fact-finding committee comprising Prof Anjani Singh Tomar, Prof. Fakkiresh Sakkarnaikar, and Assistant Prof. Nidhi Buch, all GNLU faculty members. The registrar, via email, urged all students to provide any information on the posts.

It added, “The Fact-Finding Committee is dedicated to ensuring a safe and confidential platform for students to share their insights or experiences.”

The Print reported that the posts, published on an Instagram page, Seven Angry Women, 19 September 2023, referred to the students as “vocal victim #54” and “vocal victim #55”.

“I am in 2nd year GNLU, I was raped by my own batchmate,” one post read.

“Hi, am from GNLU (he/they) over the past few months here I have been subjected to a lot of hate speech and homophobia among the university campus (sic),” read another post.

One of the Instagram posts September 19 disclosed a student’s experience of queerphobia, and mentioned the word “hatred”.

“All this happened in a tier 1 law school, there is no grievance redress mechanism where I can take this up, there are near to no resources I can avail, & as always I cried a bit about my situation and how helpless & suffocated I feel being here, but as always didn’t really had any escape, so cried and went back to sleep,” it said.

According to one of the posts, one student was assaulted on campus by a batchmate, who also threatened her after taking objectionable videos.

Such is social media’s reach that an unnamed student revealed to The Print that the entire college knew about the posts within two hours of them being posted. According to the report, nearly 200-300 students in the girls’ hostel had been discussing the post late on September 19 night.

They wore pink outfits to show solidarity with the victims.

The High Court observed that media reports suggest that the institution didn’t act because of a lack of formal complaint, which “in our opinion would not be a correct approach”.”

The High Court called the revelations scary after the fact-finding committee constituted by the college finally submitted the report in a sealed cover.

“And the involvement of the GNLU administration, suppressing the whole incident…. and this is not two incidents… incidents of molestation, rape, discrimination, homophobia, favouritism, suppression of voices, lack of existence of internal complaint committee (ICC), lack of information to the students about ICC,” the bench was quoted as saying by a national daily.

“If students of law, their voices are suppressed, who will speak in the country?… We are all responsible for this situation…This requires high-level inquiry into the affairs of GNLU and its faculty,” it added.