Principal scolding student is not suicide abetment: Calcutta HC
Times of India | 4 July 2025
Kolkata: Mere scolding of a student cannot fall within the definition of abetment of suicide as it is a teacher's duty to do so, Calcutta High Court's Jalpaiguri circuit bench recently held while quashing criminal proceedings against the headmistress of a Jalpaiguri school in a 2022 case where a Class 8 child died by suicide.
"In case a student is scolded or admonished, the same would fall within the duties of the head of the institution and will not amount to an instigation to commit suicide. The suicide note in the instant case did not in any manner name the headmistress or the teacher or any role is so defined to attract any culpability of abetment so that the headmistress can be asked to face the ordeal of a trial," Justice Tirthankar Ghosh said in the June 17 order.
The headmistress was booked by Kotwali police on the basis of the father's complaint.
The complaint said the girl was accused of cheating in an examination on Dec 7. The father was summoned to school and the headmistress and teacher humiliated him in front of his daughter. When the father protested that the accusations were false, the duo allegedly misbehaved and ousted him from the school.
The father said in his complaint that his humiliation by the headmistress and the teacher had a profound effect on his daughter and on returning home she fell silent and refused to eat. She died by suicide two days later. The father claimed her suicide note showed she was mentally harassed and could not accept the humiliation.
Referring to an earlier Calcutta HC judgement, Justice Ghosh reiterated that a school's principal was an administrative head of the institution. She, as well as the teacher, were just discharging their duty.
The judge noted that the girl wrote in her suicide letter that she was victim of false accusation. Her parents had been consoling her, but she still felt there was some sort of suspicion in the minds of her parents and friends. "She also stated that she knew that her friends had full sympathy for her, but it was she who was unable to face them because of such information having spread and there was no way out to prove herself to be innocent. As such, she expressed that she was unable to fight against such odds and thus decided to end/terminate her life," the judge said.
"There may be pain for the parents after their child passes away, but to ventilate such grievance by implicating the headmistress and the teachers of the school without any factual foundation would obviously result in a travesty of justice," the judge held.