‘Why weren’t students counselled’: SC rebukes UP in Muzaffarnagar slapping case
The Supreme Court said it had ordered the state two months ago to implement the recommendation in the report prepared by expert agency, TISS
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government for delaying the counselling to students who slapped their Muslim classmate at a school in Muzaffarnagar in August last year following communal remarks by their teacher and ordered the state to conduct the counselling within two weeks.
“We find that the state has not undertaken counselling of other children (besides the victim) who were participants and witnessed the incident. It is too late in the day to initiate measures. There was a measure of urgency required on the part of the state,” a bench of justices AS Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said.
The bench also recalled that it had clearly ordered the state government two months ago to implement the recommendation in the report prepared by an expert agency, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), which laid down an elaborate roadmap to counsel the children involved.
The bench said, “We direct the state to urgently initiate counselling for the other children and file a compliance report in two weeks.”
The state government has been told to file its affidavit by February 28 and posted the matter for further hearing on March 1. The state has been given a month to comply with other recommendations made by the panel including putting in place a mechanism to tackle such incidents in future.
The directions were passed while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who highlighted the incident seeking an effective probe and guidelines to take action against the erring teacher and prevent such incidents from recurring.
The video of the incident that took place at Neha Public School, an unrecognised private school in Muzaffarnagar, went viral where the teacher Tripta Tyagi was seen telling children to hit their classmate “hard” and saying at one point, “Maine toh declare kar diya, jitne bhi Mohammedan bachche hain, inke wahan chale jao (I have declared – all these Muslim children, go to anyone’s area)…”
Lawyer Shadan Farasat, who appeared for the petitioner, underlined that the state’s affidavit filed late on Tuesday hadn’t disclosed the agency appointed for counselling the students, UP additional advocate general Garima Prashad said the officials had held discussions with one agency, Childline. “We will file a better affidavit showing the steps taken.”
The teacher was initially booked under sections 323 (causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) of the Indian Penal Code. New and more stringent provisions were added by the UP Police after the bench was severely critical of the role of the state authorities in September. The incident must “shock the conscience of the state government”, the bench said, underlining that this amounted to the state’s failure to ensure the child’s fundamental right to get compulsory and quality education under the right to education law.
RTE Act. The Court had indicated that first it would deal with implementation of TISS report and then focus on other issues raised in the petition.