When the plea pertaining to private schools in Chengalpattu district came up on Thursday, the first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthil Ramamoorthy said, “While it’s important to reopen schools, it is better to be on the side of caution. Since the number of cases have gone down, an air of complacency should not develop. The worry regarding the more virulent new strain also exists.” 

Considering all aspects, the court felt that the State government should be left free to decide on its own and not be put under pressure, the bench said, it added that the State government was assessing the feasibility of opening schools as the pandemic was yet to die down.

The Chief Justice pointed out that it would be premature for the court to intervene at this stage when it was for the government to consider it appropriate to reopen the schools, and granted liberty to the association to approach the court after 8 or 10 weeks if a similar situation prevailed.

It may be noted that after the COVID-19 outbreak, schools reopened for classes 10 and 12 students on Tuesday. The classes have been split to have only 25 students per room.