Court directs India PM on corporal punishment

The Calcutta High Court on Friday “directed a petitioner to send a notice to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh” who is also the Chancellor of the Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, in relation to an incident in which “a class V student of the University's Patha Bhavan was forced to drink her urine by the hostel warden as a punishment for bedwetting”, a report published on The Hindu said.
A petition had been filed by lawyer Tapas Bhanja regarding the incident in which the advocate brought to the court's notice the violation of its 2004 ruling which banned corporal punishment in the schools in the state of Kolkata.
Advocate Bhanja told The Hindu that the court had directed him to "serve the contempt petition to all the alleged contemnors stating that the matter will be heard on July 27".
The report further stated that notices were also issued to University Vice-Chancellor Professor Sushanta Dutta Gupta, Registrar Manimukut Mitra and Uma Poddar, the accused warden.
The court moreover directed that a notice be served to the secretary of the state's school education department, the report said.
The Hindu also reported that earlier, Singh's office had sought a report from the Union Human Resource Development Ministry regarding the incident. It added that the said report had been submitted by the university.
Meanwhile, a woman in Bangalore accused her dentist husband of a similar charge and also sexually abusing her for dowry. The 26-year-old woman lodged a
complaint, alleging that her husband was harassing her by sexually abusing and forcing to drink her own urine, police said.