GS4 · 20 marks · 250 words

In a district, in which you are posted as a District Magistrate, a teacher molests a child in a government run school. As the news of this crime spreads, the parents, relatives and locals gather at the school. The culprit teacher has meanwhile fled. The police arrests the Principal of the school and assure the crowd that the culprit would be arrested soon. The crowd, however, has gone berserk and begins to damage the school building. It wants immediate arrest of the culprit and is not ready to budge until he is arrested. (a) Is it correct to take the Principal into custody when he has personally not committed the crime? Support your answer with appropriate reasons. (b) What options do you have in dealing with the crowd? Enumerate the merits and demerits of each and also suggest the best possible option. (c) In the capacity of District Magistrate what would be your long term plan to prevent molestations and rapes in the schools?

Answered by 4 toppers · CSE 2016–2018

Crisis Decision Making Ethical Dilemmas in Government Accountability and Ethical Governance Civil Service Values Empathy and Compassion Law and Morality

Syllabus: Case Studies on above issues.

How toppers approached it

From all 4 answers · about 380 words.

Opening

No separate opening4 of 4

Body

Points and prose3 of 4
Points1 of 4

No separate close3 of 4
A summary1 of 4

The toppers’ answers

Namrata JainAIR 12 · CSE 2018 · 375 wordsTheir whole copy

Opening

The case study presents the impatient violent mob which should be tackled by proper dialogue and assurance of wrong's not be committed again and the culprit to be punished for this behaviour.

Body · points and prose

Ans (a) Taking the principal into the custody immediately injects the assurance of justice in the minds of violent mob, to tackle their impatient behaviour. But it is not ethical to involve and arrest the individual who is nowhere involved in the crime, in the entire process.

But as the head of the school, the ultimate responsibility falls into him, of how fairly a teacher was interviewed and has his past records - checked or not.

So short term; taking into custody of police helps the mob get disperse and maintain law and order situation.

But he should be out of custody as soon as possible - as soon as law and order maintained and fair process of getting details of teacher, and search & against him should be taken.

Ans (b) Option 1: Dialogue and engagement with the mob of the fair procedure to ensure justice and maintain law and order.

Merits	Demerits
a) sense of display of justice.	a) Dialogue may not be possible because of violent behaviour of the mob.
b) Display of responsible behaviour of controlling adverse situation.

The best option is to control the mob by means of dialogue, engagement and initial protection of school authorities.

Option-2: Mob control by various means of force (tear gas) etc and controlling law and order:

Merit	Demerit
- This will tackle the violent situation	→ against the values to protect everyone
- maintain law and order	→ not a sense of justice

Option-3: Status Quo and leave the spot to crowd itself tackle the situation:

Merit	Demerit
easy option	→ No sense of responsibility
	→ Duty towards work not done
	→ no fair procedure of justice delivery followed
	→ will break the trust among the masses

This should be the least preferred option.

More on Crisis Decision Making

Deciding under time pressure with incomplete information, and the ethics of acting or waiting.

All GS4 questions on Crisis Decision Making