Chennai, Jan. 17: Teachers of a school could face a year in jail because a Class VII student was made to stand through his classes for three months at a stretch.

Jomat Johnson, a student of the government school in Kumuli, Kerala, was given the punishment in the third week of September for hurting a girl student of his class — an accusation the boy denies.

But he went through the three-month ordeal quietly, spending six hours in school standing every day in between the one-kilometre treks from his home and back.

“His father A.. Johnson learnt about the punishment only when, having noticed that the boy’s health was worsening by the day, he asked him why,” a police source said today over the phone from Kumuli, situated near the border with Tamil Nadu.

The police yesterday registered an FIR against seven teachers of the school, including headmistress Omana, on the directive of a magistrate’s court in Peelimedu near Kumuli. The boy’s father had moved the court demanding action against the school authorities.

The key accused is Subramaniyam, the science teacher who had punished the boy after a prankster had squeezed a girl’s fingers between the classroom doors. Jomat says it wasn’t him.

“The boy was humiliated by the school authorities for a wrong he may not have committed,” an officer said.

The school’s seven teachers have been charged with voluntarily causing hurt to the boy and arraigned for a criminal act “done by several persons in furtherance of a common intention”, he said.

If the charge is proved, the teachers could be jailed for up to a year, or fined Rs 1,000, or both.