School in city welcomes girl students after 132 yrs

First India Bureau

The Case

As per the prosecution, on March 15, 2012, the appellant, who was then 18 years old, visited the victim’s house when she was alone to give some documents. He then touched her back and head and said she has grown up, and the girl got uncomfortable and shouted for help.

The man, who was convicted by the trial court and sentenced to six months in jail, had filed an appeal against the order in High Court.

Mumbai: Doing away with the 132-year-old tradition of allowing only boys, a school in Mumbai has welcomed girls. The change happened last year bringing 16 girls to Bharda New High School and the management expects to have more girl students in the new academic year. Situated in South Mumbai opposite the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the Bharda New High School & Junior College was established in January 1891 by Jalbhai Dorabji Bharda and

Bharda New High School decided to change its policy three years ago

Kaikobad Behramji Marzban.

The school has given India a number of cricketers, including Vijay Merchant, Polly Umrigar and Nari Contractor, as well as wellknown table tennis player Sudhir K Thackersey.

Trustees of Bharda Marzban Educational Trust, which has been managing the institution since 1954, said the junior college has always been a co-ed institution, but the school was for boys only. However, the trust decided to change its age-old policy three years back.

“The policy to turn the school into a co-educational institution was made three years ago. However, the implementation was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we returned to normalcy, admissions opened to girls last year. We expect more girls to join the school in the upcoming academic year,” said Kersi J Treasurywala, secretary of the trust.

First India Bureau

Pune: A five-year-old boy, Sagar Barela, fell into a borewell in a village in Ahmednagar district on Monday. Despite a rescue operation lasting over nine hours, the efforts proved futile as the child was pulled out dead in the early hours of Tuesday. Sagar was the son of a sugarcane worker from Burhanpur in Madhya Pradesh. According to a police, child descended from a bullock cart at approximately 5 pm on Monday in Kopardi village, located in Karjat tehsil nearly 125km away from was no sexual intent on the part of the convict and that his utterance indicated he had seen the victim as a child.

In absence of a specific intention being established by the prosecution to outrage the modesty, it is not understood as to how Section 354 has been invoked and even held to be proved, with the specific version that the victim was frightened at the accused touching her on her back and saying that she has grown up. The utterance by the accused definitely indicates he had seen her as a child and, hence, he said that she has grown up.

“In order to outrage the modesty of a woman, what is most important is having an intention to outrage the mod-

District

Pune, and subsequently fell into a borewell.

Personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), along with local police and district administration personnel, launched an operation to rescue him. Officials had said the boy was trapped at a depth of 15ft in the defunct borewell.

“The boy was pulled out dead from the borewell at around 2 am Tuesday,” a police official said.

Karjat-Jamkhed esty. It is not the case of the prosecution that the accused did something more than what has been alleged, that is, moving his hand over the back and head of the victim,” said Justice Dangre.

MLA Rohit Pawar said farmers should take care to properly cover borewells in their fields.

“Neither the victim

— Bombay High Court

girl aged 12-13 years spoke of any bad intention on his part, but what she deposed is she felt bad or indicating some unpleasant act, which made her uncomfortable,” the judge said in the order.

The HC further said the prosecution failed to produce any material to show there was a specific intention on part of the appellant to outrage the modesty of the girl.

The man, who was convicted by the trial court and sentenced to six months in jail, had filed an appeal against the order in HC.

In its order, the HC said the trial court had erred as the present case, prima facie, appeared to be an impromptu action with no sexual intent.