BANGALORE: The high court on Tuesday came down heavily on the government and BBMP officials for not following the guidelines for schools issued by the police. The government on Tuesday submitted that a total of 186 schools, including four government schools, have been booked for not implementing the guidelines.
The high court was hearing a petition filed by the Karnataka Private School Joint Action Committee, an umbrella body of State, ICSE, CBSE and IB schools, challenging the guidelines issued by the police department in July for the safety of children in schools.
The government submitted an action taken report stating that it has constituted a special cell to monitor the implementation of the guidelines.
Moreover, the police department had asked all station house officers to go in plainclothes to schools and ascertain if the guidelines are implemented, the report said. The report said there are around 2,727 schools within the city out of which 2,100 are private schools.
The reports states that out of these 2,100 schools only 273 schools have complied with the guidelines. While 1,604 schools have partially complied, 223 private schools have fully failed to comply.The report also stated that of these 223 private schools, police have registered cases against 161 of them under Section 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of Indian Penal Code. Out of 581 government schools, only four have completely implemented and 279 schools have partially implemented the guidelines.
A total of 298 government schools have failed to implement them and police have registered cases against 25 of these schools. In the case of BBMP schools, the report states that out of 46 schools, 38 have implemented the guidelines partially while eight have fully failed to implement them. The court later asked the BBMP commissioner and principal secretary, education department, to be present in the court on Wednesday.