SC notice to Centre, states

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, December 5

The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre and the states on a PIL for making schools and government authorities accountable for sexual abuse of children, physically and mentally on the premises of educational institutions, their buses and hostels.

“It is for a good cause. So, we are issuing notice,” a Bench comprising Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justice AK Sikri told advocate-petitioner Vineet Dhanda, without waiting for any oral arguments by him.

In his PIL, Dhanda said he had two school-going kids and after reading recent media reports on a series of sexual attacks on such children across the country, he was worried about the safety of all students.

“It is the prime duty of the government to ensure the protection of school-going children from any sort of abuse” by framing strict guidelines for school authorities providing deterrent punishment to schools in case of any violation or failure, he pleaded.

All those responsible for checking such crimes were sleeping over the issue and unless something was done immediately, sexual abuse of kids in schools would spread like a wildfire, Dhanda said. It was unfortunate that in some cases the police had gone out of their way to protect the school authorities, he lamented.

Besides the gory crimes, the more disturbing aspect was that the schools, which charged exorbitant tuition and other fees, had no liabilities whatsoever under the law, the PIL pointed out, citing about half-a-dozen recent incidents of sexual abuse of children in educational institutions.