MADURAI
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday suo motu impleaded telecom majors in a public interest litigation petition that sought to enable parents to control Internet usage of their children. The court directed telecom majors to file their counter affidavits.
A Division Bench of Justices N. Kirubakaran and S. S. Sundar observed that the cyber space was turning into a menace for children. The court impleaded Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, the four service providers dominating the industry.
During the course of hearing, advocate K. P. S. Palanivelrajan said that parental monitoring system was already implemented in countries like the USA and the UK. Internet service providers in India should create awareness of parental window to control Internet usage of their children.
The court was hearing the public interest litigation petition filed by S. Vijayakumar of Madurai, who sought a direction to the National and the State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights to invoke their powers vested under Section 13 of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, to direct service providers to provide parental window service. The case was adjourned till April 23.