E-Paper
Panchkula: Beating up Class-6 student lands govt school teacher in jail
The court also imposed a fine of ₹2,500 on the convict, Kirti Malik, a resident of Sector 8, Panchkula, who was posted as maths teacher at Government Senior Secondary School, Parwala village, Barwala, Panchkula
A government school teacher, who had beaten up a Class 6 student for touching her car in Barwala in December 2021, has been sentenced to two-month imprisonment by a local court.
The court also imposed a fine of ₹2,500 on the convict, Kirti Malik, a resident of Sector 8, Panchkula, who was posted as maths teacher at Government Senior Secondary School, Parwala village, Barwala, Panchkula.
“This is not a fit case to extend the benefit of probation to the convict as she beat up a hapless child,” ruled the court of Aparna Bhardwaj, judicial magistrate first class, Panchkula, while dismissing Malik’s plea for leniency.
The teacher was booked on December 30, 2021, following a complaint by school principal Bharti Verma.
Verma had told the police that she was attending a training conducted by DIET, Panchkula, when she received telephonic information from Krishna Gautam, a Punjabi teacher at the school, to reach the school. On returning, Verma saw villagers protesting after locking the school.
She discovered that maths teacher Kirti Malik had beaten up a student of Class 6 after he touched her vehicle while playing in the ground. The student’s mother prepared mid-day meals in the school.
Malik was also accused of verbally abusing the principal, staff members and villagers. After medical examination of the child, his mother and a staff teacher, Malik was booked under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code at the Raipur Rani police station. She was arrested and later released on bail.
The medico-legal report showed that the student had pain in the left ear, throat pain with diffused redness over anterior part of neck and abrasion on left finger.
During trial, Malik claimed false implication by terming the FIR as “false and fabricated”, saying that the school principal and Punjabi teacher Krishna Gautam harboured professional rivalry against the her.
She produced the commendation certificate awarded to her for discharge of duties during the Covid-19 pandemic to press upon the fact that she worked with sheer dedication.
However, the court observed, “Merely because the accused was issued certificate of commendation for discharge of duties during Covid pandemic does not absolve her of her liability in the present case when the evidence brought on record corroborates the version of the prosecution.”
