The Supreme Court on Monday came down heavily on the Uttar Pradesh police over the delay in registration of FIR and the omission of communal allegations in the case related to repeated slapping of a Muslim student by his classmates on the behest of their teacher at a primary school in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh.
The Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Justice Pankaj Mithal, while observing that there was a ‘prima facie failure’ on part of the state government to comply with the mandate of the Right to Education Act, which prohibited physical and mental harassment of students and their discrimination on the basis of religion and caste, directed investigation into the incident by an IPS-rank officer.
Calling it a ‘very serious’ issue, which should ‘shock the conscience of the State’ if proven true, the Apex Court said that a teacher telling students to hit a classmate because they belonged to a particular community, could be described as the worst kind of physical punishment imparted by a teacher.
Asking whether this could be called quality education, the top court of the country directed the state government to ‘take responsibility’ for the education of the victim child.
It further expressed its displeasure over the fact that though the complaint filed by the student’s father related to cognisable offences, no First Information Report (FIR) was immediately registered.
A non-cognizable report was filed initially and the FIR, which was registered after a considerable ‘delay’ on September 6, almost two weeks after the incident, did not mention the allegations made by the victim’s father regarding communal targeting, noted the Apex Court.
The post Muzaffarnagar child slapping incident: Supreme Court rebukes UP government, directs probe by IPS-rank officer appeared first on India Legal.