The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed that a contempt notice be issued against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is the Chancellor of Visva Bharati University, and other officials in the incident where a Class V student of the varsity-run school was asked to lick her urine as punishment for bed-wetting.
The direction was given by a bench of Chief Justice J.N. Patel and Justice Sambudha Chakraborty while hearing a public interest litigation that claimed that the university, by inflicting corporal punishment, had violated the court’s earlier directive against the form of punishment.
“The court has asked me to serve contempt notice to the PM, who is the Chancellor, as well as Vice-Chancellor Sushanta Dutta Gupta, registrar Mani Mukut Mitra, warden Uma Poddar and West Bengal education secretary Bikram Sen,” said Tapas Bhanja, who filed the PIL. (The court can permit the petitioner to issue notice, on his application).
The next hearing will be on July 27.
The incident occurred on Saturday last when warden Uma Poddar, while on inspection, pulled up the girl for bed-wetting. She sprinkled salt on the urine and made the girl lick her urine as punishment.