Students At PM Modi's Road Show: Madras High Court Stays Investigation Against School Management

Justice G Jayachandran stayed the investigation until further orders and adjourned the case for hearing to April 24 by which date the state was to file a detailed counter.

The court had previously questioned the rationale of initiating criminal proceedings against the school management for merely taking the students to see the roadshow. The court had remarked that police should not end up filing criminal cases against school management as a knee-jerk reaction to media reports and added that filing such criminal cases against the school for such incidents will have a large-scale impact on the future participation of children in political rallies. The court had also wondered how Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 was attracted in the present case.

On Monday, Advocate General PS Raman informed the court that Section 75 of the Act would get attracted even in cases where there was potential harm to the children. He informed the court that though the school claimed to have taken the children to the road show only at 4:30 pm, there was footage of the children being present during Modi's arrival at 6 pm. He also informed that there was a stampede during the road show though no harm was caused to the students.

Raman also submitted that the Model Code of Conduct that has been issued by the Election Commission of India had prohibited the presence of school children in any kind of political rallies and hence the presence of school children at the PM's rally could not be justified.

The arguments were made in the headmistress's plea to quash the FIR against the school registered for the offense under Section 75 of the JJ Act. The headmistress had argued that the complaint was false and lodged with a vindictive attitude to harass the school. She added that the school had taken necessary measures to send the students safely with their parents. It was also argued that the complaint did not attract the offenses under the JJ Act.

Case Title: M/s S Pukal Vadivu v State

Case No: Crl OP 8089 of 2024