The Supreme Court of India allowed a minor expelled from a school in Indore over an alleged inappropriate meme to appear in the Class 10 exam and directed CISCE to issue his admit card. The bench said, “Instead of reforming him, you have decided to rusticate him…you should have taken responsibility to reform the child but rusticated him just because you said he was a bad boy.”
The Supreme Court permitted a minor boy, who was expelled from a school in Indore for allegedly sharing an inappropriate meme about teachers, to sit for the Class 10 examination and instructed the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) to issue an admit card.
A bench comprising Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan noted the boy’s registration with CISCE for the examination and stated that not allowing him to participate would result in him losing an academic year.
The bench stated,
“In the circumstances, we direct the CISCE to permit the petitioner’s son to take the examination by issuing Admit Card/Hall ticket. Having regard to the nature of the controversy, respondent no. 5 (school) is at liberty to permit the petitioner’s son to appear and write the examination in a separate room and not with other students. Further, respondent no. 5/School to conduct an internal assessment for Physical Education and Socially Useful Productive Work (SUPW) at the school and submit the assessment marks to respondent no. 6/CISCE,”
The Supreme Court also instructed both the school and CISCE to ensure that the boy can sit for the upcoming examination, scheduled to start on February 17.
During the hearing, the bench remarked,
“Instead of reforming him, you (school) have decided to rusticate him and dissociate yourself from him. As a school, you should have taken the responsibility to reform the child but you rusticated him just because you said he was a bad boy.”
The petitioner’s advocate, Nipun Saxena, argued that if the court did not allow the boy to take the examination, he would lose an academic year.
Saxena claimed that the school’s decision to expel the boy was an excessive punishment and that the school failed to pursue reformatory measures. He informed the court that the boy has been studying at home with tutors since his rustication.
The school’s counsel strongly opposed any permission for the boy to take the examination, arguing that he could not be forgiven for his actions and that allowing him to take the exam would demoralize the school officials.
The Supreme Court had previously issued a notice regarding a petition that challenged a November order from the Madhya Pradesh High Court, which upheld the school’s decision to expel the 13-year-old boy amidst his Class 9 academic session for 2024-2025.
The bench commented that minors typically learn such behavior from their environment and that memes with communal implications should not be encouraged.
The petition stated that the school’s actions severely undermined the boy’s ability to continue his education up to Class 10, as registration for Class 10 is usually completed during Class 9 according to ICSE bylaws.
The plea argued,
“The impugned decision has, therefore, severely jeopardised the continuity and stability of the petitioner’s son’s education,”
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It criticized the notion of “protecting the reputation” of the school, claiming it was misleading since the Instagram account in question was not publicly accessible.
The plea contended that imposing severe penalties like expulsion or rustication on a child for creating a private Instagram account with memes not directly attributable to him, and referencing a criminal law principle of ‘deterrence’, contradicts established legal principles.
The petitioner had previously approached the high court to challenge the school’s termination decision.