The Madras High Court on Wednesday took serious note of the reported absence of statutory rules or guidelines to regulate the conduct of online classes by schools. Observing that it was a matter of larger public importance, it directed the Centre as well as the State government to submit their responses by July 25.
Justices Vineet Kothari and R. Suresh Kumar said that the practice of conducting online classes might continue even after the threat of COVID-19 subsides, and therefore, it was essential for specific rules to be put in place.
The observations were made in an interim order passed on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition.
A mother of two schoolchildren from Chennai had filed the petition. She impressed upon the need to protect students from sexually explicit pop-up messages during online classes. Representing her, senior counsel S. Prabakaran said that the existing rules under the Information Technology Act of 2000 did not cover online classes.
He said that the petitioner was not against online classes per se and that she only wanted regulations to be put in place.
A mechanism should be devised to ensure that parents can let the children attend online classes without having to worry about the content that they might end up accessing.
Time sought
Though he insisted on an interim order from the court restraining the conduct of online classes until appropriate regulations were framed, Additional Solicitor General G. Rajagopal opposed the plea and sought time to get instructions from the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. State Government Pleader V. Jayaprakash Narayanan told the court that the government had been airing high quality educational content for school students through an exclusive television channel called ‘Kalvi’ and that it had not granted any specific permission to schools to conduct online classes.
After hearing all of them, the judges said that it might not be proper to pass any interim order in the case without getting to know the stand of the Centre as well as the State government by way of counter affidavits and granted two weeks’ time for completing the pleadings.