Centre to frame first-ever guidelines to define liability of teachers, schools
Child’s death due to school harassment to be equated with custodial death

New Delhi, June 16
In his death, Kolkata school boy Rouvanjit Rawla has inspired big change. The government today said that schools couldn’t pass off acts of violence against children as “meant in good faith and for the child’s benefit”, as did the principal and management of the prestigious La Martiniere for Boys where Rouvanjit studied in Class VIII.

Soon there will be guidelines -- the first-ever -- to define the liability of schools caught harassing children. These guidelines will recommend the nature of penalties to be borne by school teachers and managements if they are found indulging in corporal punishment, now banned under the Right to Education Act. A committee will soon be formed for the purpose.

Confirming the move to The Tribune today, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said the government was extremely concerned over the protection of IPC Sections 88 and 89, which schools invariably seek in cases of harassment of children.

“The said sections talk of acts not intended to cause death, done by consent in good faith for person’s benefit and schools often take recourse to them when encountered with issues of corporal punishment. We want to make it clear to all -- there can be no defence of these sections in a situation like the one we have at hand in Kolkata. We are bringing detailed guidelines to hold schools responsible if a child faces disability or death due to harassment by teachers,” Sibal told The Tribune.

Sibal also met National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairperson Shanta Sinha to explain to her the government’s stand on critical questions like what to do if schools cite the protection of Sections 88 and 89 of IPC and what to do in cases where a child dies due to harassment. The NCPCR is conducting the enquiry into Rouvanjit’s death following alleged harassment by the teachers at La Martiniere for Boys, Kolkata.

“We have told the NCPCR to treat a child’s death due to school harassment just as the National Human Rights Commission treats a custodial death case. In such a situation, an automatic enquiry has to be conducted. It becomes obligatory,” Sibal said adding that fresh guidelines would be evolved under the RTE Act, which explicitly bans mental and physical harassment of the child.

Also, the government will make provisions in the guidelines on what to do with schools that don’t follow the corporal punishment prevention guidelines once they are in place. “We are committed to children’s safety at school. We will work with the HRD Ministry to evolve the guidelines on corporal punishment,” Shanta Sinha said.

As for Sections 88 and 89 of the IPC, they won’t hold good in cases of corporal punishment, Sibal clarified, asking the NCPCR to ignore the same when enquiring into child harassment cases. The said sections read: “Nothing which is not intended to cause death, is an offence by reason of any harm which it may cause, or be intended by the doer to cause, or be known by the doer to be likely to cause, to any person for whose benefit it is done in good faith, and who has given a consent, whether express or implied, to suffer that harm, or to take the risk of that harm.”