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Court has further directed the state to file an appropriate affidavit by end of April about the conduct of the workshops
The Supreme Court of India was informed today by the Uttar Pradesh government that a TISS recommended counselling was being administered to the children involved in the Muzaffarnagar Slapping incident.
A bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan was further told that the counselling workshops would be held till April 24.
Instant case relates to a primary school teacher in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar instructing school children to slap their Muslim classmate.
Court has said that the larger issues of implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 and the rules framed thereunder would be heard on April 15.
In November last year, Supreme Court had come down heavily on the Uttar Pradesh government over its delay in providing counselling to the child from Muzaffarnagar to deal with trauma caused to him after she was slapped by his classmates on instructions of their teacher.
"No counseling of any of the children has been done. We can say TISS Mumbai will suggest the mode and manner of counselling and ask the Education Secretary to be present in next hearing virtually," the bench had added.
Earlier the bench had asked the Uttar Pradesh government to look into counselling options for the child.
Court had also directed the Uttar Pradesh government to nominate a Senior IPS Officer for supervising the investigation into the recent incident of a Muslim child being slapped in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh.
"We expect the State Government/senior Police Officer to submit the compliance reports on both aspects within a period of four weeks from today", Court had ordered.
The bench further noted the long delay on part of the police in registering an FIR and the fact that offences only under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 ("JJ Act”), and Sections 323 and 504 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (“IPC”) have been invoked.
A division bench of the Supreme Court had issued notice on said plea on September 6, 2023. Controversy erupted after a video of the incident went viral on social media. Notably, the accused teacher, Tripta Tyagi, had referred to the boy’s faith and asked his classmates to beat him hard.
Tyagi, the teacher concerned was booked under Sections 323 (causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) of the Indian Penal Code
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has also asked the Uttar Pradesh Police to lodge a first information report (FIR) against Tyagi and sought responses from the concerned District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.
Case Title: Tushar Gandhi vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors
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