The Kerala High Court on Thursday declined to stay the broadcasting of online classes for school students through the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology Education (KITE) Victers channel and other online modes.
Justice C.S. Dias passed the order on a writ petition filed by C.C. Girija, mother of two students from Kasaragod, seeking a directive to the State government and the KITE to stop the broadcast till all students were provided with the technical facilities for attending the classes.
When the case came up for hearing, government pleader Nisha Bose submitted that the virtual classes were started only on a trial basis. The government had already promised that students would be provided all necessary facilities before commencing regular online classes.
The government hoped to commence the regular classes by June 14. In fact, the online classes were envisaged to ensure that students did not miss out their classes, since regular classes could not begin due to the pandemic. Besides, the online classes were in a downloadable format, which could be compiled together and shown to students who had missed the online classes.
Refusing the plea of the petitioner, the judge observed that in view of the submission made by the government pleader, it did not find any exigency warranting an interim order at this stage. The court referred the case to a Division Bench.
Meanwhile, a Division Bench led by Chief Justice S. Manikumar adjourned to June 10 a public interest litigation for a directive to the government to takes steps to identify students who lacked TV sets, smart phones, laptops or computers with internet facilities for online classes. The petition was field by P.V. Krishnankutty and another social worker of Kochi. According to them, the government had assessed that about 2.6 lakh students did not have TVs, smart phones, laptops or computers with internet connection.
Despite these, the government had gone ahead with the online classes from June 1 without providing them such facilities. The worst-affected students belonged to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities and economically backward classes.
When the petition came up for hearing, Additional Advocate General Ranjith Thampan submitted that necessary facilities would be made available to all students when the actual classes started on June 14.