In the lockdown period, education through online classes came into existence. There was some confusion regarding the safety of these online classes for both students as well as for the teachers.
On Monday, the Centre repeated its commitment to ensure that the online classes were safe and had informed the HC of Madras that the guidelines for the online classes are being finalised and set to be notified by 15th of July 2020.
It is worthy to note that the submission was made before the division bench comprising Justice Mr. M. M. Sundresh and Justice Hemalatha by the newly appointed Additional Solicitor General R. Shankaranarayanan, recording the same. Point is the bench refused to grant any interim stay until the guidelines were notified.
It must be noted that the bench then adjourned the batch of pleas in this regard to 20th of July and directed the state to submit its stand on the issue. Dean of Regional Institute of Ophthalmology and the Government Ophthalmic hospital were asked by the bench to submit a report on the eye strain the students would suffer due to the long hours spent before mobile phones and computers. It must not be forgotten that earlier the counsels appearing for the petitioners opposed the conduct of online classes in the absence of rules or regulations in place.
The opinion of the state of TN was unclear regarding these online classes. Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology or MEIT had filed a counter in support of such online classes is known.