Factual antecedents: In the month of June 2023 few children studying in a reputed School formed closed/private online platform.
As per the school, during the month of June 2023, several students of the School formed a private social network group and started making obnoxious comments against the teachers of the school. One lady teacher was called ‘Negro’ and even more obnoxious comments were made in the group.
Later one of the parents of the student brought to the notice of the school management about the group and also sent the screenshots of the debates in the said group.
The school management decided to take note of the issue. Hence, disciplinary committee was constituted to examine the scenario. The parents of these 61 students participated in the proceedings and 60 of them agreed to assure the school management to see that such activities against the teachers of the school are not repeated. The school management asked the parents to pay the fine of Rs. 10,000/- a cancer Hospital.
Apart from the above, the School asked the parents to give assurance/undertaking that they would monitor the online activities of their children i.e. the activities which might expose the children to dangerous world.
One of the parents approached Karnataka High Court against this and the Karnataka High Court passed an interim order restraining the school management from collecting the fine and to permit the daughter of the complainant to attend the classes till the next date of hearing.
Alleging violation of the Court order, the parent initiated proceedings before the division bench. The Hon’ble Division Bench while disposing the matter observed that whether the School management can insist on the undertaking has observed that “Whether such insistence would be proper or otherwise would be a different question and at the moment we may not go into it”.
The matter is pending before the single judge of the Karnataka High Court to decide this question.
Daksha Legal 