Mumbai Court convicts teacher for sexually harassing 4 students; says sexual abuse in schools discourages education of girl children

A Mumbai Court on Thursday convicted a 35-year-old school teacher and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for 5 years for sexually harassing four of his students [State of Maharashtra v. Charudatta Borole]. .The special judge Nazera Shaikh convicted the teacher for offences under the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and for sexual harassment under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).The judge said that the survivors must have mustered a lot of courage to speak out against their teacher and had maintained their stand till the end of the trial.“The victims have mustered courage to report the offence and they were firm on their statements. This shows that, the victims have placed their faith on the judicial system which needs to be upheld”, the judge held..The judge also said that such incidents of harassment against young girl affects their further education as parents often get apprehensive to send the children back to school.“In this case, victims are young girls aged between 10-11 years. They were sexually assaulted by their own teacher in their classroom and school premises. In our society, girl child education is still not completely supported by the family and when such type of incidents is committed, the parents gets apprehensive in sending daughters to school. It impacts the opportunity of other girls from taking education,” the Court held..In order to prevent the accused from committing a similar offence where minor victims are involved, it is important to punish the perpetrator, the judge underscored.“So as to send the message in the society that such culprits who commit offences against children are taken to task and to prevent such type of offences in the society, appropriate sentence is to be imposed,” the judge said sentencing the accused to five years of rigorous imprisonment..According to prosecution, the minors were studying in class 5 in 2016 when the incident took place. The complainant, mother of two of the minors tried to raise the issue with the school which assured her that action will be taken. However after a few days, when the school informed her that the accused was on leave due to bad health, she approached the police with a complaint.A first information report (FIR) was registered against the accused for offences under Sections 354A (sexual harassment) and 509 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 8 and 10 (sexual assault) of the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act..The judge highlighted that the accused being a teacher, was a custodian of the minors, but he had taken undue advantage of his position and committed sexual assault on the minors. “In this case, there was an incident in the school premises where the victim girls were taking education. As accused was their teacher, he was custodian of the victims when they were in school. Taking undue advantage of his position being teacher he committed sexual assault on the victims,” the 31-page order stated..The judge further elaborated on the role and responsibility of a teacher as highlighted in Indian scriptures.“The Indian society has elevated the teacher as 'Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu, Gurur Devo Maheswaraha'. As Brahma, the teacher creates knowledge, learning, wisdom and also creates out of his students, men and women, equipped with ability and knowledge, discipline and intellectualism to enable them to face the challenges of their lives. As Vishnu, the teacher is preserver of learning. As Maheswara, he destroys ignorance. It is, therefore, the duty of the teacher to take such care of the pupils as a careful parent would take of its children,” the order stated..[Read order]