Bombay High Court rejects anticipatory bail plea of Kharghar creche owner

"No sympathy can be shown to you, the incident of assault happened in your property and you turned a blind eye. Instead you told the child's mother that she had a fall, the least you could have done is shown some responsibility," the Bombay High Court observed on Thursday while rejecting the anticipatory bail application filed by Priyanka Nikam, owner of Purva Play School, where a 10 month old girl was viciously assaulted by an employee.

Justice Sadhana Jadhav, while rejecting the plea has urged the state government to frame guidelines to regulate creches in the state

"It is the responsibility of the state to ensure creches have license under the Juvenile Justice Act. It is very unfortunate that for several years, the state has not considered regulating this. Illiterate women are also running creches, without providing any assurance to the working parents that their child will be take proper care of, " the court said.

Nikam had approached the High Court after her plea was earlier rejected by the sessions court. It was argued on her behalf that when the incident occurred on November 24, she was not present in the playgroup. Further the the application of section 307 (attempt to murder), applied on the accused is not maintainable as she did not have any enmity with the parents of the child, knowledge of the incident and it cannot be said that she willfully neglected the incident, it was argued. Only after going through the CCTV footage Nikam had cooperated with the agency.

Assistant Public Prosecutor,Veera Shinde strongly opposed the petition saying that the accused had prior knowlege. As per CCTV footage recovered from November 10 to 12, it has come to the notice of the police that similar assault was carried out on other children. The playgroup was being run only for the extent of minting money and no proper care of children was taken.

The court after going through the entire records of the investigation noted that "The accused has some audacity to say that she had initially run the playgroup on a trial basis and later applied for registration in January this year. It means that she was running it as a grocery shop. This shows that it was only a business for her."

As per the police, after a ten-month-old girl was assaulted by Shaikh, the infant suffered swelling on her eyes and forehead. Only when the child's mother came to pick her up from the creche she found out of the incident, which she reported to the police. Based on which the maid and owner were arrested on November 24, under minor section of 325 and section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, they were produced before the magistrate, which granted bail to them. A day later the police invoked attempt to murder charges and under the JJ Act. Shaikh has been in custody since the incident.

Following this incident, the Navi Mumbai Police issued orders to play schools that verification of the antecedents of employees should be done from the police. A proper register should be maintained by the play school of arrival and departure of parents and children and parents signature should be taken when the child is leaving the play school for the day.