Cruel to subject child to physical violence in name of discipline or education: Chhattisgarh HC
Bilaspur, Aug 3: It is cruel to subject a child to physical violence in school in the name of discipline or education, the Chhattisgarh High Court observed while dismissing a petition filed by a woman teacher accused of abetting the suicide of student.
An FIR was lodged at Manipur police station in February against Sister Mercy alias Elizabeth Jose (43), a teacher of Carmel Convent School in Ambikapur in Surguja District, for allegedly abetting the suicide of a girl student of Class VI, the petitioner's lawyer Rajat Agrawal said.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal made the observation while dismissing Jose's petition seeking to quash FIR and chargesheet in the abetment of suicide case.
In its order of July 29, the HC bench said "imposition of corporal punishment on the child is not in consonance with his right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of India".
"On a larger canvass right to life includes all that which gives meaning to life and makes it wholesome and worth living. It means something more than survival or animal existence. Right to life enshrined in Article 21 also embraces any aspect of life which makes it dignified," the HC said.
"Being small does not make a child a less human being than a grown up...It is cruel to subject the child to physical violence in school in the name of discipline or education. A child being a precious national resource is to be nurtured and attended with tenderness and care and not with cruelty. Subjecting the child to corporal punishment for reforming him cannot be part of education," the HC order further stated.
Jose was arrested after the suicide note left behind by the child named her.
The petitioner's lawyer said Jose had, on the day of the incident, merely admonished the student and taken her ID card as per the usual disciplinary procedure followed in the school.
"The petitioner never had any intention to abet the suicide of the student. Police, without conducting any preliminary inquiry, registered an FIR against the petitioner based solely on the basis of the suicide note," Jose's counsel submitted.
The state counsel, however, opposed the plea to quash the chargesheet and FIR arguing the evidence of the classmates of the deceased recorded under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) showed the conduct of the petitioner was so harsh that students were in mental trauma.
Dismissing the petition, the HC said it could not delve into the defence of the accused and then proceed to examine the matter on its merit by weighing the evidence so produced.
"The disputed questions of facts in the case cannot be adjudged and adjudicated at this stage while exercising powers under Section 528 of the BNSS (Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita) and only the prima facie prosecution case has to be looked into as it is. Evidence needs to be led to substantiate the defence of the accused," the HC said.
The court does not find any ground to quash the chargesheet and FIR against the petitioner, it said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
