Read Time: 09 minutes

Synopsis

The Delhi High Court has recently issued directions in relation to guidelines or procedures to be adopted by the Child Safety Monitoring Committee (CSMC) in the course of its inspection of safety standards in schools to prevent crimes against students.

The directions were given by a division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela.

The court was perusing an application by the Chairperson of the CSMC, i.e., Dr. R.M. Sharma, whereby he was seeking approval of guidelines or procedures to be adopted by the CSMC in the discharge of its duty.

The guidelines are as follows:

• No member will be allowed to inspect the schools independently. The committee as a whole, headed by the Chairperson, will inspect the schools. However, in exceptional circumstances, the Chairperson may permit any member of the Committee to inspect the schools independently, who shall report to him the findings of such inspection in writing.
• The proceedings of the inspection will be conducted by the Chairperson. The members of the committee may make suggestions to the Chairperson directly in writing, which will be duly considered by the Chairperson; however, the decision of the Chairperson shall be final and binding on the committee.
• The members will not interact with the head of the school (HOS), the manager of the school, or any authority of the school directly.
• Inspection of the classrooms, toilets, and other analogous areas of the school may be inspected by the Chairperson for the safety of the children, which shall be photographed to make the inspection process fully transparent.
• The inspection of the school will be made during school hours, when the school is functional i.e. between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m., and the members shall not leave the school premises without completing the inspection.

Accordingly, the court posted the matter for reporting and further directions on April 18, 2024.

Notably, on September 27, the High Court set up a three-member committee to inspect safety standards in schools to prevent crimes against students.

Court passed the order in a suo moto Public Interest Litigation (PIL) pertaining to sexual assault on a three-year-old girl allegedly by a cleaner working in a school in South Delhi.

On September 1, the Delhi government's standing counsel, Santosh Tripathi, proposed before the high court that it should constitute a “permanent child safety monitoring committee”. Tripathi had submitted, "It is my request. We need a permanent child safety monitoring committee with the support of the Department of Education (DoE) because this is needed. This incident should not happen again. It was very traumatic". 

Background

In the case, on August 8, a division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Saurabh Banerjee noted, “It has been brought to the notice of this Court by Hon’ble Mr. Justice Subramonium Prasad, a news item published in the Times of India in respect of a three-year-old girl child who was sexually assaulted by a school cleaner in South Delhi”.

The court had said, "Let a Suo motu PIL be registered based on the newspaper report".

“Let a status report be filed positively within two weeks from today in respect of action taken in the matter by the Delhi Police as well as by the Education Department, GNCTD,” the bench had directed.

“Mr. Santosh Tripathi, learned counsel appearing on behalf of Government of NCT of Delhi, while filing the status report, will mask the name of the girl child as well as the names of the parents of the girl child, and shall undertake all necessary measures to protect the identity and right to privacy of the girl child. He shall take care that the media acts in compliance with the statutory provisions as contained in Section 23 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act), 2012”, the court had said in its order dated August 2.

According to the Times of India report, the alleged 33-year-old accused Arjun Kumar is a resident of Old Gautam Budh Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. A case under sections 376 (punishment for rape) and 377 (unnatural offences) of the IPC and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has been filed against Kumar.

Case Title: Court on its own motion v. Government of NCT of Delhi