The headmistress of a middle school in Coimbatore has approached the Madras High Court with a plea to quash a criminal case registered against the school management for having reportedly taken 32 students in uniform to a roadshow conducted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 18, 2024.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh heard the matter on Thursday, March 28, 2024, and directed Additional Public Prosecutor A. Damodaran to take instructions from the Inspector of Sai Baba Colony police station in Coimbatore city by April 3. He also advised the investigating officer to not take any coercive action till then.
The Coimbatore city police had registered the First Information Report (FIR) for the alleged offence under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 on the basis of a complaint lodged the District Child Protection Officer Pavithra Devi on March 19.
The complainant had claimed to have taken cognisance of the issue through news reports, social media posts and a letter written to her by an Assistant Returning Officer on March 19. She conducted a field inspection and learnt from the students that they were indeed taken to the roadshow by their teachers.
In her complaint, Ms. Devi said, the school administration appeared to have called the parents over phone on the morning of March 18 and asked them to take their children home by afternoon since the Prime Minister’s roadshow was to take place on the Mettupalayam Road near the school campus that evening.
However, the parents of about 32 children did not turn up till 4 pm and therefore, the teachers had taken them to the roadshow, the complainant said and sought action under Section 75 of the JJ Act which prescribes punishment for assaulting, abandoning, abusing, exposing or willfully neglecting the children.
On the other hand, the headmistress S. Pukal Vadivu (54), in her FIR quash petition, said, the complaint was absolutely false and that it had been lodged with a vindictive attitude just to harass the school management. She said the school took all necessary measures to send the children safely with their parents.
“The allegation as if the school children were taken in uniform to see the honourable Prime Minister is absolutely false and untrue. There was no act on the part of the school at all... It is an absolutely mischievous allegation as though the petitioner had taken the school children for election campaign by forcing them,” her petition read.
The headmistress also contended that the complaint does not in any way attract Section 75 of the JJ Act and therefore, the FIR must necessarily be quashed.
