As reported in telegraphindia.com on 07 April 2012:
Slow redress in school abuse

Slow redress in school abuse

New Delhi, April 7: Less than a quarter of complaints about alleged abuse by teachers in the past two years have been addressed by the national child rights body, an RTI query has revealed.

The disclosure that the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has been unable to punish the violators comes less than a week after it issued guidelines banning corporal punishment and warned of strict action against those caught wielding the rod.The matter assumes added significance given that the NCPCR is the apex body overseeing the implementation of the Right to Education Act, 2009.

In the past two years, while 2,850 complaints had been filed with the commission, only 692 cases, or 24.3 per cent, were resolved, the RTI reply to Delhi social activist Umesh Gupta has revealed.

Between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011, the commission was only able to solve 592 of 1,089 complaints, or a little over 54 per cent.The maximum number of cases, 771, were from Rajasthan. Of these, only 455 (59 per cent) were resolved. From Tamil Nadu, 128 complaints were received but only 51 (40 per cent) were addressed.

Matters deteriorated in 2011-12. Between April 1, 2011, and March 16, 2012, the commission could resolve a mere 100 of 1,761 complaints, or 6 per cent of the total.

In the case of Bengal, only one of 99 complaints was resolved, while none of the 780 complaints from Andhra Pradesh was addressed. Odisha (35), Haryana (17) and Assam (12) also drew a blank.

Sources blamed staff shortage for the massive backlog and said the situation was likely to get worse with Kiran Bhatty, the head of the right to education division of the NCPCR, having put in her papers along with her entire team on March 31.

Among the cases resolved was that of a child being beaten up by a teacher for not wearing the school tie in Uttar Pradesh. A notice was issued to the district magistrate.

In another case, Unnati Malik, a Class VII student of K.R. Mangalam School in Delhi, was detained in her class, a violation of the RTE act that says no child can be detained until Class VII. The principal of the school was issued a notice.