The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday apprised the Supreme Court about the status of counselling of students who were allegedly instructed by their school teacher to slap a Muslim boy for not doing his homework. A bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan took note of the compliance affidavit filed by the education department which said the workshops for them will be held till April 24.
“We direct the state to file appropriate affidavit by end of April about the conduct of the workshops,” the bench said. It said that considering the larger issues flagged by the apex court in an earlier order regarding implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 and the rules framed thereunder, the matter would be listed for hearing on April 15.
The apex court said the state would be free to file an affidavit on these aspects. While hearing the matter on February 9, the top court had slammed the state government for not counselling the students who were allegedly instructed by their school teacher to slap the fellow student for not doing his homework.
“There was an element of urgency in counselling. We direct the state government to immediately implement the suggestions in TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) report about the counselling of other children, who were participants and witnesses in the corporal punishment incident,” the bench had said. The top court had earlier castigated the state for not complying with its order to depute an agency for counselling the boy and his classmates.
The woman teacher of the school in Muzaffarnagar district has also been accused of hurling communal slurs at the victim boy. The top court had appointed TISS, Mumbai to suggest the mode and manner of counselling the boy and his classmates.
The Muzaffarnagar Police had registered a case against the teacher and the school was also served a notice by the state’s education department. The teacher was booked after a video purportedly showed her asking the students to slap the class-2 boy in Khubbapur village and making a communal remark.
The apex court had on November 6 last year asked the state government to facilitate the admission of the boy to a private school. On October 30, 2023, the court had directed the state government to immediately decide on granting sanction to prosecute the errant teacher. It was hearing a plea filed by Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, seeking speedy investigation in the case.
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