‘Can’t criminalise corrective classroom discipline’: Madras High Court junks POCSO case against teacher

Madras High Court news: The Madras High Court recently quashed criminal proceedings initiated against a school teacher under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, observing that corrective classroom discipline cannot be criminalised under a stringent child protection statute.

Justice L Victoria Gowri passed the order while allowing a petition filed by a teacher seeking the quashing of proceedings pending before a POCSO court.

Justice L Victoria Gowri heard the matter on April 30.

“Corrective classroom discipline, absent anything more, cannot be criminalised under a stringent child protection statute,” the Madras High Court observed in its order dated April 30.

Registration of FIR

• According to the prosecution, a Class 7 student had alleged that the teacher subjected her to “bad touch” in the school staff room and threatened her with academic consequences if she disclosed the incident.
• Based on a complaint lodged by the child’s mother, a First Information Report (FIR) was registered under sections 7 (sexual assault) and 8 (punishment for sexual assault) of the POCSO Act and Section 506(i) (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
• Feeling aggrieved by the criminal case, the teacher moved the Madras High Court.
• The counsel appearing on behalf of the teacher contended that the prosecution was malicious and stemmed from internal disputes within the school administration relating to service matters and promotions.
• He further argued that the allegations, even if taken at their highest, were a product of exaggeration of a classroom disciplinary episode and did not disclose any “sexual intent,” which is an essential ingredient for an offence under Section 7 of the POCSO Act.
• The de facto complainant’s counsel submitted that the complaint arose out of a misunderstanding generated in the context of the teacher scolding the child and that neither the complainant nor the child desired continuation of prosecution.

Victim denied sexual abuse

• The Madras High Court noted that under Section 7 of POCSO Act, sexual intent is not incidental but foundational and in the absence of prima facie material disclosing such intent, the penal provision cannot be mechanically attracted.
• The court observed that the material on record did not disclose, prima facie, any act bearing sexual overtone.
• On the contrary, it noted that the girl, upon interaction with the court in camera, categorically disowned any allegation of sexual abuse.
• She was “conscious, coherent, capable of understanding questions” and stated unequivocally that she had not been subjected to sexual abuse by the petitioner.
• The Madras High Court said that once the alleged victim displaces the prosecutorial foundation, it would be “wholly artificial” to continue the prosecution under sections 7 and 8 of POCSO Act.
• It further held that the alleged statement warning the child that she may not be permitted to write examinations amounted, at best, to classroom discipline and could not constitute criminal intimidation under IPC Section 506.
• Mere disciplinary admonition or academic warning “cannot be elevated into criminal intimidation” in the absence of a real threat contemplated by penal law, the judge said.

‘Can’t convert pedagogic correction into sexual crime’

The court also remarked that criminal law cannot be used to convert “pedagogic correction into sexual crime.”