Madhya Pradesh High Court upholds expulsion of student who posted communal, abusive memes about teachers

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday refused to interfere with a private school’s decision to expel a student who posted communal and derogatory memes targeting his teachers on Instagram.

Justice Pranay Verma held that the school in Indore committed no illegality in issuing a transfer certificate to him and disallowing him from continuing his studies in Class X at the institute.

The Court took critical note of screenshots, chats and extracts of Instagram posts produced before it in a sealed cover.

“A perusal of the material so produced shows that the conduct of petitioner's son has been of high indiscipline. He has created memes of one of his own teachers on religious lines and has posted about him along with his photograph with a caption which is quite derogatory in nature and tends to offend his religious feelings and sentiments. The same uses abusive language and communal references targeting teacher of a particular faith. The photograph of the teacher was used without permission. The school's official image and name was also misused in violation of the norms. The tone and content of the post reflects a revengeful, vulgar and rebellious attitude. The chats which have taken place on the basis of the said post are highly abusive in nature,” the order stated.

It further recorded that a photograph of another teacher was posted “along with a dog trying to depict their similarity”. This is wholly unacceptable, the Court said. 

“A lady teacher has been shown as a Spiderwoman flying in the air. Another lady teacher is shown as Iron Lady and one teacher has been called to be a real male. Fun has been made of a lady teacher on the basis of her physique. Another lady teacher has been shown to be "Bitter Gourd" and so on and so forth,” it added.

The Court was dealing with a plea moved by the Class IX student’s father challenging the termination ordered earlier this year by the school administration. It was submitted that the MP State Commission for Protection of Child Rights had directed the school not to terminate the student, to no avail.

In response, the school said that three students including the petitioner’s son were operating the Instagram page and despite their derogatory and communal memes against teachers, they were permitted to appear in the final examination with expulsion only from the next academic session.

It was also submitted that no bad remarks were given on his transfer certificate. The school also highlighted the student’s prolonged acts of bullying, aggression towards peers and insubordination.

The Court opined that the school was not bound to comply with the direction of the child rights body, as its order can at best be regarded to be advisory or recommendatory in nature.

Further, the Court noted that it was not a matter of just one meme, but a series of the posts. Thus, the student’s acts cannot be said to be a stray incident, it said.

“It shows a pattern of behavior. The posts show use of abusive language against the school and also an attitude of taking revenge from the school against some of its action. Names of some of the girls of the school are also found in the chats and suggestion has been given for maligning them,” the Court added.

The Court also opined that the student clearly understood the seriousness of his acts and thus no apology can come to his rescue.

“From the material produced by respondent No.5, it cannot be said that acts of petitioner's son are that of a misguided child or a child who is not able to understand the seriousness of his mischievous acts. He, on the contrary, shows sufficient mental development enough to understand the gravity of his acts hence the apology tendered by him and the petitioner cannot come to his rescue. In any case the apologies which have been tendered are qualified in nature and not unequivocal. The action which has hence been taken by the school cannot be said to be illegal or arbitrary in any manner looking to the gross indiscipline of petitioner's son.”

Advocate Jayesh Gurnani represented the petitioner.

Advocate Amit Bhatia appeared for the State.

Advocate Tarang Chelawat appeared for the school.

[Read Judgment]