The inherent right and quasi-parental authority of a teacher to proceed by way of disciplinary action against a pupil under his charge has been well-recognised, and the minimum requirements of the Rules of natural justice must be tailored to suit the requirements of the situation and the exigencies of the case.

1. These writ petitions are directed against the disciplinary action taken by the Managing Committee of the Medical College, Calicut, against the writ petitioners, students of the College, resulting in their suspension from the College for varying terms. The reason for the action was the "ragging" indulged in by the petitioners who may be broadly referred to as the senior students of the College, against the "freshers" or the junior students. "Ragging" has passed so much into popular parlance that we feel that any elucidation of the term would be unnecessary. The petitioners were charged with "ragging" of different grades and varieties ranging from abusing in filthy and obscene language or demanding the repetition of obscene language by the freshers, to beating, manhandling and other debasing forms of behaviour. The incidents are stated to have happened in the College and the hostel campus during the ragging season from 13 111977 to 3121977. We shall state the facts in O. P. No. 2740 of 1978, with respect to which the principal arguments, were advanced. Ext. P1 dated 19 6 78 is the memo of charge. The petitioner is a student of the IV Year M.B.B.S. Class. The charge was for having manhandled, beaten, ill-treated and abused the seven named students; and having inflicted physical and mental harm by forcing them to do violent exercises to the point of exhaustion, making them do obscene acts like masturbation, exposure of private parts of the body, forcing them to take bath in filthy water in the dead of night, teasing, making them dance naked, sing obscene songs and the like. It was recited that the petitioner had threatened the victims with dire consequences for non-compliance with their demands and forced them (threatened?) to do the indecent acts against their will. The acts complained of are stated to have been committed during the period between 14-11-1977 and 3-12-1977, either alone or in company with senior students. The notice indicated that it was meant to give the petitioner an opportunity of defending himself and that no further opportunity for such defence would be afforded. The abstract of evidence at the foot of Ext. P1 set down the names of the seven victims referred to earlier in the body of the notice, and indicated against each, the acts of humiliation or embarassment visited on him. For instance, one of them was beaten on the back, the second was beaten, the third was asked to masturbate, the fourth was asked to do vigorous exercises, and so on. We have set out the contents of Ext. P1 to afford a picture of the charge and the show cause notice served on the petitioner. Ext. P2 is a copy of the explanation submitted by the petitioner. He took up the stand that the charges were vague and indefinite, that the students had not adduced any evidence in support of the charge, and so on. Ext. R1 is the enquiry report submitted by a Committee of three Professors of the College, namely, Dr. P. Jacob Abraham, Professor of Anatomy, Dr. P. N. Neelakantan Achary, Professor of Physiology, and Dr. M. S. P. Nair, Professor of Biochemistry. Ext. R2 filed with the additional counter affidavit, is the affidavit of Dr. M. S. P. Nair, detailing the procedure followed at the enquiry. The Committee collected evidence from the Ist Year students (male and female). Each of them was first called and asked to narrate his experience of ragging by the senior students. The facts disclosed were recorded by the Committee. Ext. R2 records that the freshers gave sufficient evidence to establish the identity of the wrongdoers. Those whose evidence was considered concrete and tangible, were called again by the Committee and asked to identify the miscreants from a group of photographs. The photographs did not contain any name, and were mixed and kept separately for identification. As the next step the delinquent students were called and were informed of the gist of the evidence in respect of their reported involvement in the ragging acti