The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, before whom the plea came up sought the State’s response in this regard in a week.

The petitioner, K Mahendran, had submitted that the present crisis had put in peril the right to education of children in private schools as their parents were not in a position to afford school fees due to loss of employment.

In fact, most parents were unable to afford even the reduced payment and had fee arrears for the academic year 2020-21. This was not deliberate but due to serious financial crisis faced by many families, the petitioner said.

Some private schools had refused promotion to the next level, starting from LKG, and were not sharing the online classes links, the petitioner said.

The plea sought a directive to schools to let such students participate in online classes.

The bench also issued notice to the State and the UGC on a plea which sought to keep in abeyance admissions to undergraduate programmes until Class 12 students are allowed to take an improvement exam, as allowed by the Supreme Court. The hearing is scheduled for July 6.