Muzaffarnagar slapping case | SC directly criticises Uttar Pradesh in case of teacher goading students to slap Muslim classmate

Supreme Court blames Uttar Pradesh government for incident of teacher goading students to slap Muslim classmate.

The Supreme Court on January 12, 2024, directly blamed the Uttar Pradesh government for the incident of a teacher at a Muzzafarnagar private school goading her students to slap their seven-year-old Muslim classmate.

“All this happened because the State did not do what it was expected to do. The State should be very concerned about the manner in which this incident happened,” Justice AS Oka, heading a Bench, told the counsel for Uttar Pradesh.

“But it was a private school…” the State counsel protested.

The court had in November asked experts from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to intervene and help with the counselling of the child and his classmates.

Student slap incident throws light on poor quality of schooling in rural Uttar Pradesh

On Friday, the Bench asked advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for activist Tushar Gandhi, who had brought the case to the Supreme Court in a petition, to go through the TISS recommendations and make further suggestions, if necessary, in consultation with the parents of the child. Mr. Farasat said the TISS report was “inadequate”.

In an earlier hearing, the court had flagged the incident as “very serious” and in direct violation of Article 21A (the fundamental right of a child to free and compulsory education) of the Constitution, the Right to Education Act and even the Uttar Pradesh Rules which tasks the local authorities to ensure that children do not face discrimination in classrooms.