India, Jan. 31 -- The Supreme Court last week upheld a 2023 order of the Bombay high court, directing the Nagpur collector to assess the quantum of damage suffered by Dalit researchers, Kshipra Uke and Shiv Shankar Das, on account of loss of their research data.

Uke and Das, both members of Scheduled Caste communities and PhD holders from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, had approached the high court claiming that they had not received compensation from the National Commission for Scheduled Castes for loss of their research data that was allegedly stolen and destroyed.

The researchers had told the high court that they were engaged in a research project and had generated research data of up to 500 samples from their survey on ...