PIL in the apex court seeks guidelines regarding online virtual classes

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has now been filed before the apex court, demanding that the Union of India (UOI) be directed to broaden the direction of online virtual classes through video conferencing among children issue instructions. This demand is made by parents of children who believe that their children are at risk of unpleasant and unsafe material available on the Internet. This petition has been filed by Dr. Nand Kishore Garg through his lawyer Shashank Dev Sudhi.

The petitioner claimed that because of online learning, young children easily interact with unpleasant materials available on the Internet and countless open websites, which have a serious impact on the all-round development of children.

Sudhi sought direction from the court to order the closure of the online classes until a comprehensive guideline was prepared for hosting the online classes in a fully encrypted and secure manner. He further also demanded that the guidelines should have an appropriate mechanism to prevent access to many internet-operated prohibited websites during online classes through video conferencing in session.

He said, “A comprehensive mechanism should be developed to ensure that there is no alternative system of computer-operated devices or online classes for all excluded and marginalized children in our country to ensure that underprivileged children can be beneficiaries of online video classes. The UOI, Ministry of Education and CBSE have all been made respondent in the matter to decide the guidelines, which means that if the court gives the verdict in favor of the petition, then all three will be ordered by the court to decide.”