India, March 16 -- "Perhaps justice bends to the situation," says advocate Pradip Gharat. His words, perhaps, explain more than his abrupt removal as special public prosecutor from the high-profile Payal Tadvi case; they reflect the utter anguish of the family of the second year resident doctor who died by suicide allegedly due to ragging at the Topiwala National Medical College attached to the BYL Nair Hospital in Mumbai.

Payal's death in 2019 made headlines across the country, triggering protests and fuelling conversations around caste-based harassment in universities. The 26-year-old, from the Tadvi-Bhil scheduled tribal community in Jalgaon district, was allegedly driven to take this extreme step due to caste-based harassment from th...