The Gujarat High Court has quashed criminal charges against the trustee of a school and a teacher, who were accused of slapping and humiliating an 18-year-old student, which allegedly led him to commit suicide.

The single-judge Bench of Justice Divyesh Joshi observed that in order to attract offence under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), there must be instigation in some form on part of the accused to cause the deceased to commit suicide.

The act of instigation must be of such intensity that it was intended to push the deceased to such a position under which he or she had no choice but to commit suicide. Besides, such instigation must be in close proximity to the act of committing suicide, noted the single-judge Bench.

It said in the present case, there was no material on record to show that the accused instigated the student to commit suicide.

The High Court ruled that taking the contents of the FIR and the statements of the witnesses as correct, it was impossible to conclude that the applicants instigated the deceased to commit suicide by way of so-called humiliation meted out to the deceased.

By no stretch of the imagination, the alleged acts of the applicants could amount to instigation to commit suicide, it added.

The High Court said it was unfortunate that a young student lost his life and that it was conscious of the pain and suffering being undergone by his mother. However, as observed by the Supreme Court in the case of Geo Verghese (supra), the sympathy of the Court and pain & suffering of the complainant (student’s mother) could not translate into a legal remedy, much less a criminal prosecution, it added.

The matter pertained to a Class 12 science student, who committed suicide on January 22, 2016. The mother of the student stated that she later received information from fellow students about certain events that took place before the student’s death.

As per the information received, the deceased’s batchmate told the trustee that the earlier teaching staff of the school was better than the new staff. The accused teacher is said to have overheard this complaint and assaulted the student who complained.

The said accused was then alleged to have made it clear that he will keep beating other students of the class in the coming days.

A few days before the suicide, a commotion occurred behind the bench of the deceased student, for which the accused teacher slapped the student thrice. When the deceased asked the teacher as to why he was being slapped without any fault on his part, the teacher is said to have retorted that he would inform the reason by evening.

When the student persisted with his query, the teacher allegedly threw the student out of class and sent him to the trustee, who made the student stay back in the school premises till 6 pm.

On the next day, the student was asked to sit idly for two hours on the fourth floor of the school building. After two hours, the trustee told the student that his parents have been informed about his behaviour. Soon after this, he committed suicide.

A criminal case was filed against the school’s trustee and the teacher. In their petition to quash this case, the accused contended that the entire case was based on hearsay.

The High Court said there was no intention on part of the accused teacher to abet the commission of suicide by one of his own students and therefore, no mens rea can be attributed.

In the present case, the very element of abetment was missing as under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, there should be correct mens rea to commit the offence, the single-judge Bench observed and quashed the proceedings.

The accused was represented by Senior Advocate Asim Pandya, along with Advocate Gaurav Vyas, while the complainant was represented by Advocate Utpal M Panchal.

Additional Public Prosecutor Dhawan Jayswal appeared for the state.

The Madras High Court has convicted a school teacher under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act for the sexual assault of a four-year-old student. The HC stated that a child so young at the time of occurrence cannot parrot it at all times and it could not be expected from the victim that she should remember all the incidents.

A single-judge bench of Justice P. Velmurugan concluded that the respondent/accused has committed the offence and the Court has invoked presumption clause and it is for the accused to rebut the presumption in the manner known to law. Though it is a settled proposition of law that the accused need not come into the witness box and prove his innocence, however, this is not an offence which comes under IPC, this offence comes under POCSO Act.

The bench noted, “The finding of the trial court is completely erroneous and that in cases of aggravated sexual assault on a child, who was only studying UKG, the support of medical evidence is not always a necessity and evidence of the sole victim would suffice to record conviction.”

“Why are you torturing me by keeping hands there and in school, sir also doing the same,” the girl shouted at her mother while crying when the mother was giving her a bath. On hearing the above statement, naturally the mother, out of anxiety, might have aided the child by saying the name of the parts of the body, since the child being 4 years old could not remember and say all the acts of the accused and hence it does not mean that the mother only taught the entire things as she  is not in a position to communicate all her grievance verbally,” said the court.

The bench held, “The representations made by the school teacher/respondent/accused and the age of the victim child and the offence committed, which is grave in nature and also the fact that the respondent has committed the offence in the school itself, while working as teacher, there is no mitigating circumstances to award lesser punishment. The respondent is convicted for the offence under Sections 5(f) and 5(m) of the POCSO Act. Since for the above offence under the POCSO Act, minimum punishment prescribed is imprisonment of 10 years, the respondent/accused is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 10 years and fine of Rs 10,000, in default, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a further period of one year for the offences under Section 5(f) of the POCSO Act and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 10 years and fine of Rs 10,000, in default, to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a further period of one year for the offence under Section 5(m) POCSO Act. The sentence of imprisonment shall run concurrently.”

The respondent stated that the mother of the child tried to have close relationship with him and since he rejected the same, she foisted a false case. In his defence, he stated that he never committed the offence as projected by the prosecution and false case has been foisted against him and he is the sole breadwinner of his family and prays for the mercy of the court.

The Court did  not accept any of his contentions, since most of the witnesses including the independent witnesses  deposed that the respondent/ accused used to keep the victim child on his lap and the victim also clearly stated about the offence committed by the respondent/ accused.

The court rebuked the trial court while saying, “The trial courts also sometimes not applying their minds and searching for proof beyond all reasonable doubt and taking advantage of the flaw in the investigation, giving the benefit of doubt to the accused. But cases like this, we cannot give much importance to the technical ground of proof. In this case, the victim is an infant, aged below 5 years, she is not in a position to speak out the charges of crimes or atrocities, under such circumstances, the mother has spoken and no corroboration can be expected, since because the inability of the victim child, the culprit cannot be escaped from the clutches of law.”

The bench further remarked, “The culprits are escaping for the technical reason and unfortunately Investigation Wing also not up to the standard and due to either defect in investigation or fault in investigation, most of the cases, the culprits are escaping. Therefore, mere technicalities should not be allowed to stand in the way of administration of justice.”

The POCSO Act itself designed in such a way that once the prosecution proved the offence and the Court drawn the presumption under Section 29 of the POCSO Act, it is for the accused to rebut the presumption, but, in this case, this Court finds that the respondent/ accused has committed the offence of aggravated penetrative sexual assault and draw presumption under Section 29 of the POCSO Act and also finds that the respondent / accused has not rebutted the presumption.

A two-judges bench comprising of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said, “…there can be no justification for non-payment of salaries” when fees were being charged from the students.

The Court granted two week’s time to schools to positively clear and pay all arrears to the concerned teachers and list the matter for hearing on May 11. 

The Courts direction came on a petition filed against a single Judge order, in which the interim relief was not granted. Teachers of Fateh Nagar, Tilak Nagar and Nanak Piao Schools, alleged that they were not paid salaries since December 2019 and amount of Rs. 15,000/- were paid on 23^rd April as an ad-hoc amount.

However, teachers of the Hargobind Enclave School has alleged that salary for the month of March has not been paid to them, and teacher from School near the India Gate submitted that 85% of the salary in the month of January has been paid and nothing has been paid further. 

Counsel appearing for the schools contended that salaries could not be paid due to the fee arrears from the students.