NEW DELHI: In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court has quashed the criminal case against the management of a Maharashtra private school over the death of a student in a pillar collapse, holding that mere negligence cannot be elevated to rashness.
Quashing the proceedings, the bench reiterated that criminal courts must examine the nature of the act at the threshold stage and not allow emotional cases to proceed merely because a death has occurred.
While acquitting the president and the superintendent of the private school in the case involving the death of a 12-year-old girl in Maharashtra, who was crushed under a pillar, the court said that the mind of a judge should not get boggled by emotions involved in a case; otherwise, justice cannot be done.
"Dictating this order was a very painful experience. The very thought of a twelve-year-old girl getting crushed beneath the pillar of her own school makes our heart bleed with pain and agony. We can also imagine the pain and agony the parents of the deceased must be undergoing even as of today. However, such thoughts should not allow the mind of a judge to get boggled; otherwise, justice cannot be done. However harsh one may find the law, at the same time, the law remains the law, and it has got to be respected," Justice J B Pardiwala, who wrote the judgment for the bench, said.
The school management was facing prosecution for culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 and causing death by negligence under Section 304A of the IPC.
The top court emphasised that Section 304-A of the IPC and similar provisions require a rash or negligent act that directly causes death. But rashness and negligence, though often mentioned together, have different meanings and different thresholds.
The prosecution in this case, the court found, had only alleged negligence but had framed the case as rashness.
The bench said such an approach would dilute the safeguards of criminal law. If negligence alone were enough to label someone rash, then every engineer, every principal and every trustee would face jail for any structural failure.
After going through the arguments put forth by the lawyers representing the school, the court said there was no evidence that the management had carried out any rash act on the day of the incident or had ordered students to stand near a visibly dangerous pillar.
The court held that the trial would serve no purpose. It would only harass the management for years without any prospect of conviction.
Allowing the plea of the school management, the bench said, "We are of the view that the mere failure to attain the standard of care prescribed by the law, thereby committing a breach of such duty as observed by the HC, would not be a criminal act. The contractor to whom the work was assigned could at the most be prima facie guilty of negligence, being in the knowledge of the fact that poor or inferior construction may lead to an accident or a casualty. However, that by itself would not suggest that the appellants had the knowledge that inferior construction in all probability was likely to cause the death of any student studying in the school," the court said.
