Chicago – January 15, 2024
The Supreme Court slammed Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath government and police on Monday for their handling of a case in which a teacher in Muzaffarnagar district urged her children to slap a seven-year-old Muslim classmate.
A panel of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal found a “prima facie failure” on the part of the Uttar Pradesh government to comply with the Right to Education Act.
The Act aims to provide quality, accessible, and mandatory education to children aged 14 and up without regard for caste, creed, or gender.
At Monday’s hearing, the Supreme Court ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to assign a senior Indian Police Service official to investigate the case and provide a report within three weeks.
The Supreme Court ruled that the FIR lacked claims made by the child’s father and the video transcript.
While Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, representing the Uttar Pradesh government, stated that the communal aspect of the case was “being blown out of proportion,” the justices disagreed and emphasized that the matter should not be handled lightly.
The court ordered the Yogi Adityanath government to provide professional counseling to the Muslim child and other classmates who were told to hit him.
