The Gujarat High Court has initiated legal action on its own accord after becoming aware of a newspaper report concerning two separate incidents at the Gujarat National Law University in Gandhinagar. These incidents involve a second-year law student accusing a fellow student of rape and alleged harassment directed at a male student due to his sexual orientation.

Referring to the incidents as matters of significant concern with direct implications for the mental and physical well-being of the students, a panel consisting of Justice AS Supehia and Justice MR Mengdey has sent a notice to the Registrar and the Head of Academic Affairs at GNLU.

The court has instructed the university administration to confidentially identify and document statements from the students who are victims. If these statements are found to be credible, the court has mandated that appropriate legal actions be taken in accordance with the law.

Additionally, the court has stipulated that the statement of the rape victim must be recorded by a female member or professor of the university.

The court has also requested the university to provide a report on this matter by the next scheduled hearing. In this report, the university is required to specify the names of the members of the Internal Complaint Committee (ICC).

The court has directed that it should also be informed about the norms, standard procedures, or regulations that the university has adopted for addressing issues of harassment or ragging experienced by students. The court has set the returnable date for this notice on October 10.

It's worth noting that, according to the Daily Ahmedabad Mirror, a queer student has alleged that Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) has cultivated a culture of homophobia on its campus. In a separate incident, a female student from GNLU has accused one of her batchmates of rape.

Even though the victims have not formally lodged complaints, they have anonymously shared their grievances on the social media accounts of all the National Law Universities.

In his social media post, the queer student stated that he was subjected to feeling ashamed of his sexual orientation and faced mistreatment for not being accepted by anyone in the boys' hostel. He expressed that he did not feel like he belonged there. Additionally, he asserted that there was no effective mechanism in place for addressing grievances on the campus.

In her social media post, the rape victim claimed that she had been sexually assaulted by a fellow student from her batch. She alleged that this incident occurred after she was drugged, and the perpetrator recorded videos of her without her consent. Furthermore, she stated that the perpetrator threatened to release these videos if she reported the incident or spoke about it to anyone.