Bombay HC Raps Maharashtra Govt Over Laxity In School Child Safety Guidelines

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday expressed dissatisfaction over the Maharashtra government’s report on the implementation of its child safety guidelines in schools, which were issued after the 2024 sexual assault of two minor girls in a Badlapur school.

The department of school education and sports had issued the government resolution (GR) pursuant to High Court directions, after the court had taken suo motu cognisance of the incident.

Bench cites glaring lapses in compliance checks

A bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Sandesh Patil noted glaring lapses in the compliance report, which was prepared after officers from state departments physically visited over 1 lakh schools across the state.

The bench observed that although some steps were taken, critical safeguards remained neglected, such as sufficient CCTV coverage in all schools and background verification of staff.

“Not happy” with govt’s measures, says HC

“You are waiting for some other incident to happen and then you will wake up? In your own government schools you have not taken steps,” the bench remarked, while emphasising it was “not happy” with the measures taken by the government.

Amicus curiae calls compliance ‘superficial’

Advocate Rebecca Gonsalves, who was appointed as amicus curiae (friend of the court), submitted a note to the court and said that the compliance seemed “superficial.”

As of August 29, according to the note, 63,887 government and 44,435 private schools were inspected.

CCTV cameras were missing in 45,315 government and 11,139 private schools. Background verification of staff had not been done in 25,150 government and 15,675 private schools.

As far as safety measures regarding the transportation of students (verification of drivers, installation of GPS systems in buses, appointment of female attendants, etc) were concerned, these were absent in 46,188 government and 22,148 private schools.

In 17,651 government and 9,333 private schools, visitor registers or codes of conduct had not been maintained. There were no school safety committees in 2,266 government and 3,231 private schools. Moreover, provisions of the POCSO Act had not been communicated to the managements of 12,104 government and 10,789 private schools.

Although CCTV cameras were installed in several schools, it was not verified whether they were sufficient in number, placed at strategic locations, functional, or being monitored.

Key safety areas completely ignored

The court also flagged that several key aspects had not been checked at all, including the appointment of counsellors, proper functioning of complaint boxes, CCTV monitoring, safety of toilets, cyber safety awareness, first aid, self-defence training, and disaster management plans.

Report silent on residential schools and anganwadis

Crucially, the report was silent on inspections of residential schools, anganwadis, ashramshalas and observation homes. No list of schools inspected was provided.

HC directs transparency, next hearing on Sept 30

“Orders are passed not to remain on paper but to be taken to their logical conclusion,” the court said.

Also Watch:

Bombay HC Refuses To Quash FIR Against 19-Year-Old Pune Engineering Student Over ‘Operation Sindoor’ Social Media Post

The court has asked the school education department to ensure that details of compliance in schools are uploaded on its website so that parents are made aware of the provisions and the extent of compliance by schools. The matter has been kept for further hearing on September 30.