(Prayer: This Crl.p is filed u/s 482 Cr.p.c (u/s 528 BNSS) to quash the crime/FIR no.94/2025 as for the offences under Section 125(a) BNS filed by the Respondent no.2 before the koppa p.s., Mandya dated 05.09.2025, which is before the addl. civil judge (jr. dn) & JMFC court, Maddur, Mandya Dist.)

1. The petitioner-Management of the Divyajyothi School is before the Court calling in question the registration of a crime in Crime No.94/2025 registered for the offence punishable under Section 125(a) of the BNS, 2023, registered on 05.09.2025.

2. Heard Sri.Nitin A.M, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner, Smt.Waheeda M.M, learned HCGP appearing for respondent No.1, Sri.D.A.Shivakumar, learned counsel appearing for respondent No.2 and have perused the material on record.

3. Facts in brief, germane, are as follows:

                  3.1. The son of the second respondent–complainant, a child studying in the 4th standard in the petitioner–school, was travelling home in School Bus No.5 on 01.08.2025 along with several other children. During the journey, some children are alleged to have carried and sprayed coloured confetti/sparklers inside the bus, one such spray having entered the eyes of the complainant’s child. What may have appeared, at first blush, to be a childish mischief or a fleeting accident, allegedly culminated in a calamity of lifelong consequence: the child lost vision in one eye and suffered disability assessed at 40% to the whole body.

                  3.2. The complaint, lodged on 05.09.2025, alleges that this tragedy was not merely the result of an isolated act of another child, but was occasioned by the negligence of the school management in failing to ensure adequate supervision inside the school bus, in failing to provide an attendant, and in failing to ensure that the CCTV camera installed in the bus was functional. The registration of the crime has brought the petitioner before this Court. A Co-ordinate Bench, by order dated 27.10.2025, stayed further investigation against the petitioner–school, and the said interim order continues to operate.

SUBMISSIONS:

PETITIONER:

4. Learned counsel Sri.Nitin M, appearing for the petitioner, submits that all the necessary precautions had been taken by presence of an attender in the bus, the installation of a CCTV and what other steps had to be taken, the school is not aware and the unfortunate incident though has happened where the child has lost his eye, the management cannot be hauled for the act of another child or act that has happened inside a school bus after the hours of the school, is his submission. He would seek quashment of the proceedings.

STATE:

5. Contrariwise, the learned HCGP would take this Court through the papers of investigation to demonstrate that the CCTV though was installed, was not functioning. The attender was not present and therefore, these are matters which have to be investigated into, more so in the light of the fact of a child losing the eye.

COMPLAINANT:

6. Learned counsel appearing for the complainant would submit that the responsibility of the school does not begin and end within the four walls of the classroom. It travels with the child from the time the child is received into the custody of the school until the child is safely restored to the hands of the parent. The school bus is not a detached island beyond institutional responsibility; it is an extension of the school itself. He would further submit that if investigation itself is interdicted at this stage, not only would criminal accountability be foreclosed, but even the complainant’s pursuit of consequential remedies, including compensation, would be seriously prejudiced.

7. I have given my anxious consideration to the submissions made by the respective learned counsel.

CONSIDERATION:

8. The facts narrated hereinbefore are, in their broad contours, not in serious dispute. The incident occurred on 01.08.2025 in School Bus No.5 belonging to the petitioner–school. Several children were travelling in the bus. It is alleged that two or three children had carried coloured sparklers/confetti and sprayed the same inside the bus, which entered the eyes of the complainant’s son. The child, on being dropped near his residence, came running and crying of burning sensation in his eyes. The mother, initially unaware of the gravity of the injury, later took the child for medical treatment, only to be told that the injury had caused irreversible damage. The allegation, therefore, is not of a transient hurt; it is of a childhood permanently scarred.

9. The treatment that the child undertook resulted in rendering a disability certificate. The disability certificate reads as follows:

                

                  A unique disability card is rendered depicting the child to have permanent disability. The card is as follows:

                 

10. Based upon the said incident and the result of the child becoming permanently disabled to the tune of 40% to the whole body, a complaint comes to be registered alleging gross negligence on the part of the management of the school. I deem it appropriate to notice the complaint registered on 05.09.2025. The complaint reads as follows:

                 

                 

                 

11. The complaint may not be an elaborate legal thesis. It need not be. An FIR is not expected to be an encyclopaedia of all facts, all offences, all evidence and all legal consequences. Its purpose is to set the criminal law in motion. At this stage, the Court is not called upon to conduct a mini-trial or to weigh the defence of the school against the allegations of the complainant. The question is whether the allegations, taken at their face value, warrant investigation. The answer, in the considered view of this Court, must be in the affirmative.

12. A school which undertakes to transport children assumes a duty of care that is heightened, not diminished, by the tender age of those entrusted to it. In fact, the State through promulgation of the Rules called the Karnataka Educational Institutions (Classification, Regulation and Prescription of Curricula, etc.,) (Amendment) Rules, 2018, regulates the educational institutions including transportation. The mandatory requirement is indicated in section 1C which deals with transportation and reads as follows:

                

13. What is mandated in law is, there should be attendants in the bus in which students of tender age are transported to their residences from the school. The management of the school should oversee whether the teacher or attendant accompanies the students till the last stop, and a responsible person/security to oversee the movement of the vehicles in front of the school for drop/pickup of the children.

This is the mandate of the statute. The schools cannot violate the said mandate of the statute. A child which travels in a school bus which is an extension of the school itself, cannot be left high and dry till the child from the school reaches the house even if it is the last stop. The schools cannot show a hands off to the responsibility of compliance with the mandate of the statute.

14. Therefore, the safety of children in a school bus is not a matter of charity or convenience; it is a solemn obligation mandated under the Statute as well. Whether there was an attendant in the bus, a security or whether the CCTV camera was installed, even if installed, was merely ornamental or functional, whether prohibited or dangerous material was allowed to be carried by children, whether the school had issued and enforced adequate safety instructions, and whether the management failed in its duty of supervision are all matters which cry for investigation.

15. The offence alleged is the one punishable under Section 125(a) of the BNS, which reads as follows:

                  "125. Act endangering life or personal safety of others.—Whoever does any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or the personal safety of others, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three months or with fine which may extend to two thousand five hundred rupees, or with both, but—

                  (a) where hurt is caused, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees, or with both;"

                  (Emphasis supplied)

                  Section 125(a) penalizes any person who acts rashly or negligently that it endangers human life or personal safety which results in injury to someone else. Section 125(a) corresponds to Sections 336 and 337 of the earlier regime-the IPC. To attract the mischief of rashness or negligence against a person, such act of omission or commission must be attributable to the said accused. The complaint clearly meets the ingredients of Section 125(a). Therefore, investigation in the least is a must.

16. The contention that the act was that of another child and, therefore, the management must stand completely absolved at the threshold, cannot be accepted at this stage. The precise contours of culpability, if any, can be delineated only after investigation. The petitioner may ultimately demonstrate absence of criminal negligence. But that conclusion cannot be recorded today by strangulating the investigation at its inception, especially when the incident has resulted in permanent disability to a child, a child of tender age, yet to behold the full bloom of life, has been condemned to live with permanent visual impairment.

In that light, finding no merit in this petition at this juncture, the petition stands rejected. Investigation must ensue.