Taking a serious view of the recent suicide of a professor of a polytechnic college in Tirunelveli following a ‘humiliating’ attack by his students, the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) refused bail to the accused students.
“If courts show indulgence to the petitioners on the ground that they are students, it will be a misplaced sympathy and will send wrong signals to the teaching community which is already seething under the pain of academic pressures.
They will feel terribly let down if courts treat such delinquencies with kid gloves,” Justice P N Prakash said in his order.
On April 16, a student of the F X Polytechnic College in Tirunelveli had reported late for the college examination and he was pulled up by assistant professor Elango. This led to an altercation between them and a professor Subramaniam and college bus driver Sudhakar intervened and rebuked the student.
Angered by this, the boy and his friends assaulted Subramaniam the same evening. Within hours they attacked Sudhakar and his wife at their house.
Later, unable to bear the humiliation of being beaten up by his students, Subramaniam committed suicide. Following this the police arrested five students.
Two of the accused moved the court seeking bail claiming they were falsely implicated in the case as they were friends of the main accused in the case.
Justice Prakash said the petitioners have not behaved like students at all.
“If persons of such criminal propensities are released on bail, I am afraid they will go about tampering with the evidence with impunity,” he said and dismissed their petition.