SC Accepts Proposal To Entrust District Education Officers With Responsibility To Ensure Safety In Schools

The Supreme Court disposed on August 14, a 13-year old PIL dealing with safety in schools, after expressing its satisfaction with the draft letter to be sent by the National Disaster Management Authority to the Central and State Governments.

In its draft letter to be sent to the Chief Secretaries/Principal Secretaries, Department of Education of all the States, and the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, the NDMA proposed that the District Education Officer of each district be declared a “Nodal Officer” with responsibility, liability and obligation as well as powers and functions to ensure strict compliance with the National Disaster Management Guidelines (School Safety Policy), 2016, within the district of his jurisdiction.

The bench of the Chief Justice, J.S.Khehar and Justice D.Y.Chandrachud, after going through the draft letter submitted on NDMA’s behalf, by the Additional Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta, while hearing Avinash Mehrotra v Union of India, expressed its satisfaction that it fully satisfies the parameters required to be implemented on the subject.

The bench directed that the same shall be implemented in letter and spirit by all concerned authorities.

In its School Safety Policy Guidelines, 2016, the NDMA focuses upon the urgent need to strengthen risk resilience of schools in rural as well as urban areas of the country.  It aims at ensuring that all school children across the country remain safe from any kind of disaster risk as they access their right to education.

Among other things, the guidelines seek to build capacity of children, teachers, school personnel, state and district education machinery on school safety and disaster preparedness.

The guidelines define school safety as the creation of safe environments for children starting from their homes to their schools and back.  This includes safety from large-scale natural hazards of geological/climatic origin, human-made risks, pandemics, violence as well as more frequent and smaller-scale fires, transportation and other related emergencies, and environmental threats that can adversely affect the lives of children.

Avinash Mehrotra v Union of India and Others was filed when the Child Rights Initiative, an NGO, found a lot of children dying due to school building disasters and fires etc.  Schools were directed to follow bare minimum safety standards in addition to complying with the National Building Code of India, 2005, with particular emphasis on the Code of Practice for fire safety in educational institutions, as enumerated in the Bureau of Indian Standards.  The Code aims at prevention through safety measures, early warning systems and fire dousing provisions in case of a fire and fire escapes to prevent injuries and deaths in case of an accident.

CRI, an affiliate of the Human Rights Law Network, engages with issues concerning the welfare of children.

Avinash Mehrotra filed the petition, in the wake of the Kumbakonam school fire tragedy on July 16, 2004, which resulted in the deaths of 94 children.  The main judgment in the case was delivered by Justice Dalveer Bhandari on April 13, 2009, and was kept pending, to ensure compliance by the authorities to its directions.