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UP slap case: Teacher likely to be tried for hurting religious feelings after nudge by SC
The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to decide on granting sanction to prosecute the teacher, who was accused of encouraging students to slap a classmate and making communal remarks at a private school in August
The Uttar Pradesh private school teacher, who has been accused of encouraging students to slap a classmate and making communal remarks in August, is likely to be tried for offences of outraging religious feelings and causing cruelty to a child following a nudge by the Supreme Court, which pulled up the state government for its investigation on Monday.
A bench of justices AS Oka and Pankaj Mithal, which had issued a slew of directions last month after the incident was brought to light in a PIL filed by Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, directed the state government to immediately decide on adding the new offence contained in section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) dealing with outraging the religious feeling of any class of citizens.
This was informed to the Court in a report submitted by Inspector General, Meerut Range, who was entrusted with the monitoring of the case pursuant to the Court’s last order. The report further indicated that the offence of causing cruelty to a child, punishable with maximum sentence of five years under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Child) Act has also been slapped against the teacher, Tripta Tyagi.
Going through the report, the bench said, “Perusal of the report by IG, Meerut Range shows that the second proviso to Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act has been applied along with Section 295A of IPC. The investigation is complete and government sanction under Section 295A is awaited. We direct the government to immediately take a decision on grant of sanction,” The matter has been posted for further hearing on November 6.
The FIR against Tyagi came to be lodged on August 25 after the alleged video of the incident involving a private school in Muzaffarnagar went viral on social media. The Muslim student was hit by his classmates even as the teacher made communal remarks. The PIL filed by Gandhi sought guidelines to prevent such incidents in future and even highlighted the sloppy investigation in the case as the teacher was sought to be prosecuted for minor offences of causing hurt.
During Monday’s hearing, Gandhi’s lawyer Shadan Farasat told the Court that the victim’s father had recently approached him and filed an affidavit that showed the child was “severely traumatized” and was badly in need of counselling as he feels threatened to face anybody while refusing to join school.
The UP government’s education department informed the Court that a committee of three doctors was formed to counsel the child but he has refused to come to their counseling centre. “Is this the approach of the state government to ask the child to approach the counseling centre,” the bench said, while adding, “When it comes to the future and welfare of the child, the state cannot treat it as an adversorial matter.”
The Court directed the state government to file a response to the affidavit by the victim’s father and asked additional solicitor general (ASG) KM Nataraj appearing for the UP government to take instructions whether any expert body such as NIMHANS or Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) would be willing to help in this regard.
In the order, the bench said, “We have put the state to notice that we are considering expert agency for counselling of not just the victim but other children involved in the said incident.”
Last month, the Court had come down heavily on the state by observing that if the allegations in the incident are correct, it must “shock the conscience of the state government” as this amounted to state’s failure in ensuring the child’s fundamental right to get compulsory and quality education under the right to education (RTE) Act.
The Court sought a report from the state’s education department on the implementation of RTE Act and sought alternate arrangements to be made for continuing the affected child’s education. The education department informed Court that its response is ready and will be filed before the next date.
