Corporal Punishment To Discipline Children In School Is Cruel: High Court

It is cruel to subject a child to physical violence in school in the name of discipline or education, the Chhattisgarh High Court has observed while dismissing a petition of a woman teacher accused of abetting the suicide of a student.

Subjecting the child to corporal punishment for reforming him cannot be part of education, a division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal said in its order on July 29.

"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," it said.

Being small does not make a child a less human being than a grown up, the court observed.

An FIR was lodged at Manipur police station in February against Sister Mercy alias Elizabeth Jose (43), a teacher of the Carmel Convent School in Ambikapur in Surguja District, for allegedly abetting the suicide of a Class VI girl student, the petitioner's lawyer Rajat Agrawal said.

Jose was arrested after the suicide note left behind by the student named her.

The high court dismissed Jose's petition seeking to quash the FIR and the chargesheet in the abetment of suicide case.

"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 high court 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," it stated.

The petitioner's lawyer said that Jose, on the day of the incident, merely admonished the student and took 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 the FIR arguing the evidence of classmates of the deceased recorded under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) showed the petitioner's conduct was so harsh that students were in mental trauma.

Dismissing the petition, the high court 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 high court said.

The court does not find any ground to quash the chargesheet and FIR against the petitioner, it said.