Corporal punishment: Girl’s parents move HC for action

The parents of the 15-year-old girl, who was slapped by one of her teachers, filed a writ petition in the Bombay high court on Wednesday. It was filed against authorities of Sacred Heart High School in Worli and the teachers concerned.

Pracheeti Burkar has already started going to school not wanting to miss her Std X prelims. Her father Sunil, however, said he won’t rest till she gets justice. “The teacher had no right to slap my daughter; it’s against the rules. I want to see strict action taken against this,” he said.

Thomas Varghese, the teacher who allegedly slapped Pracheeti, said he punished her because she was hiding her mobile phone and lying about it, but denied hitting her. “I was strict with her because she was hiding her phone. But her parents have blown the matter out of proportion,” he said.

Varghese has been working at the school for 27 years and has nearly 85 students supporting him in the case.

Pracheeti’s mother had earlier said that Varghese had asked her to collect her daughter’s leaving certificate (LC) after the incident. Varghese admitted to this but said there had been a miscommunication. “Her mother had said something about filing an ‘NC,’ [non-cognisable offence], but I misheard her. I didn’t know what an NC was so I assumed she was talking about an LC,” he said.

Varghese said RTE’s no detention policy made it tough for teachers to maintain discipline among students. “My students are disturbed by this incident. They are unable to study and with the exams are around the corner, we want to put this behind us,” he said.