KOCHI: The Kerala High Court has directed five engineering students accused in a ragging case to undergo social service, preferably at Kollam General Hospital for a period of two weeks while exonerating them from the case.
Justice K Haripal directed the petitioners to appear before the secretary of the Kollam District Legal Services Authority on March 21 for getting them deployed for appropriate social service activities preferably at General Hospital.
The DLSA secretary should see that the petitioners are assigned social services, in consultation with the superintendent of the hospital, for two weeks, for doing services at least eight hours a day. The court made it clear that the exoneration would take effect only after the production of a certificate proving the satisfactory completion of the social service.
The court issued the order while disposing of the petition filed by M S Harikrishnan, M Sahal Muhammed, Abhishek Anantharaman, Nabhan Anees and Aswin Manohar who are students of TKM Engineering College, Kollam, seeking to quash the ragging case against them. Hrithwik C S, senior public prosecutor, said the accused persons had meted out cruel treatment to junior students of the college.