A city court on Monday upheld the order for the trial of the four teachers, including principal Sunirmal Chakravathi of La Martiniere for Boys School on charges of abetment to suicide in the case of Rouvanjit Rawla, the Class 8 student who killed himself allegedly after being caned at school. This means the teachers may face arrest under Section 305 of the IPC which is a non-bailable section. The next hearing will be on February 2.
The chief judge, city civil court, Kolkata, Dipak Saha Roy rejected the prayer of the four teachers and upheld the order of a metropolitan judge to try them under more serious charges than those earlier framed by the police.
Rouvanjit committed suicide on February 12, 2010 and a case was filed by his father Ajay Rawla under Section 305 (abetment to suicide of a minor) of the IPC.
However, the police had filed the chargesheet with lesser charges under Sections 323 and 324 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 352 (punishment without grave provocation) and 23 of the Juvenile Justice (negligence of duty). The police said it could not find any proof of abetment to suicide during its investigation.
The four teachers were arrested on October 4, 2010 but were released on bail as they were booked for bailable offences.
However, the metropolitan judge on November 19 ordered that the teachers be tried under Sections 305, 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 34(common intention) of the IPC.
“My clients had filed a petition claiming that the 12th metropolitan judge of Bankshall court had no jurisdiction to reframe charges as there was no material for accusing them of abetting the boy’s suicide. They had sought quashing of the order before the court of Judge Saha Roy,” said the defending counsel Kaushik De.
He also said, that the metropolitan judge did not hear them before reframing the charges on a plea by the counsels of Mr Rawla, who claimed that the police had diluted the charges against the teachers.
La Martiniere for Boys, however, stood behind its teachers. Secretary Supriyo Dhar ruled out any action against the teachers for now. “They will be continuing in their office as they are yet to be proven guilty. We still have the option of challenging the verdict in a higher court,” Mr Dhar said.