Laxity in students’ safety rules: Govt faces HC heat

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.

- Urvi Mahajani

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 cognizance of the incident.

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.

“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.