Child safety neglect
Lucknow: Safety of schoolchildren is an important issue in UP. In such a situation, a case related to this was heard in the Lucknow bench of the High Court on Friday. During this, it was found that despite the Supreme Court guidelines issued in 2009, schools in the state have not been inspected for the last 14 years. The court has expressed its displeasure over this matter and has summoned the ‘meeting minutes’ of the last two years of the National Disaster Management Authority.
Next hearing on November 11
The court said that if we find that despite the Supreme Court order, the disaster authority has not done anything in this regard, then appropriate order will be passed. The next hearing in the case will be on November 11. The order was passed by a division bench of Justice Alok Mathur and Justice Brijraj Singh while hearing a PIL filed by residents of Gomti river bank in 2020.
What’s in the petition?
The petition specifically raises the issue of schools operating in residential areas of the city. During the hearing, the court emphasized on the implementation of the guidelines given by the apex court in the Avinash Mehrotra case in 2009. In compliance with the order passed in the last hearing, the state government said that there are a total of about one lakh 41 thousand schools in the state, whose inspection will take about eight months.
The court was also informed that an action plan has been prepared for inspection of various schools in the state, in which it is proposed to involve trained persons from civil engineers, fire brigade, road transport and basic education and district school inspectors. Experts will evaluate the structural safety and security measures of schools. On this, the court said that it will also be necessary to carry out videography of each inspection. Amicus Curiae will speak to schools that do not allow pickup.
During the last hearing of this case, the court directed the school institutions around Hazratganj and Raj Bhavan to provide pick-up facilities for children up to class 5 from within the school premises. DCP (Traffic) Prabal Pratap Singh, who was present during the hearing, told the court that only three schools have complied with the order. On this, the court has entrusted the responsibility of speaking to the rest of the school management to senior advocate JN Mathur, who was appointed amicus curiae in the case.
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