The Bombay High Court on Friday sought response from the Maharashtra government in a plea by education officer from Thane who was suspended following sexual assault on two minor girls in a school in Badlapur, alleging that the his suspension order was "politically motivated" and he was made a "scapegoat".
Balasaheb Rakshe approached the high court to stay his suspension order till his plea was heard by the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT). He also sought a restrain on the state government from appointing any other officer in the post.
A bench of Justices AS Chandurkar and Rajesh Patil, however, said it would consider the request for interim relief on the next date of hearing and directed the state government to file its reply.
Rakshe’s advocate Satish Talekar argued that there was no misconduct on the part of the education officer and that the government merely wanted to save its face after the Badlapur incident where two minor girls were sexually abused inside their school premises by a male attendant. “The petitioner (Rakshe) has been made a scapegoat. The government made a statement first before the media that two education officers have been suspended and then issued the suspension order,” Talekar argued.
He had initially approached MAT challenging the suspension order claiming that it was “arbitrary, discriminatory and malafide”. As MAT refused to grant any interim relief, he approached the HC contending that it was “politically motivated” and he was being made a “scapegoat” in the entire episode.
His plea claimed that on August 18 when he learnt about the sexual assault case, he contacted the Ambernath block education officer and asked him to visit the school, conduct and enquiry and submit a report. The block education officer submitted his report two days later, pursuant to which Rakshe issued a show cause notice to the school president/ secretary/ headmaster. The notice also questioned the school as to why their CCTV was not working.
The enquiry report was forwarded to the Director of Education (Primary) in Pune and the Deputy Director of Education (Primary) in Mumbai, Rakshe claimed. “On August 21, a committee of administrators was set up to manage the Badlapur school. The petitioner also directed the headmasters of all primary, secondary and higher secondary schools to install CCTVs, complaint boxes and a students’ safety committee,” the plea said.
Despite all this, the minister for school education announced in the media that he (Rakshe) has been suspended, his plea read.
