The Delhi High Court on Tuesday criticised the education system and described it as a “completely dehumanised” machine that is “mass producing clones”, PTI reported. The court made these oral observations while hearing a Supreme Court-initiated petition about the alleged suicide of an Amity Law University student in August 2016. The matter was transferred to the high court in March.

The bench of Justices Siddarth Mridul and Najmi Waziri said there was an “element of callousness” in how the university handled the student’s “cry for help” before he took the extreme step. “It seems individuality is frowned upon now,” the justices said. “You must conform at all costs, else retribution is swift.”

Third-year student Sushant Rohilla killed himself on August 10, 2016, after he was barred from appearing for his semester exams. After his death, around 300 students held a protest on the institute’s campus and demanded the resignation of a professor and college director for alleged mental torture and harassment.

Rohilla’s family and friends described him as a meritorious student with a strong extra-curricular record who was barred from appearing for his sixth-semester exams because of poor attendance. The law school is affiliated to Delhi’s Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.

Rohilla had left a suicide note saying he was a failure and did not wish to live. “The student reached out to you [Amity],” the bench said. “Implement your rules, but do not put students at risk,” the bench told the university, which claimed that it was only adhering to its attendance rules.

The court ordered the Deputy Commissioner of Police (south) to submit a comprehensive report before August 8, the date for the next hearing. The court-appointed amicus curiae said the status report submitted by the Delhi Police was “shocking” as there was nothing in the complaint that required examination of any person, PTI reported.