Reopening of schools entirely for state govts to decide, says SC

Reopening of schools entirely for state govts to decide, says SC

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:21.09.2021

Advising a student petitioner to concentrate on his studies, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain his PIL seeking immediate physical reopening of schools and said it would not enter into decision-making on resumption of offline academic activities, which fell exclusively within the domain of the executive.

Asking senior advocate Ravi P Mehrotra to tell his young client, class XII student Amar Prem Prakash, to focus on his studies, a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and B V Nagarathna said it is imperious on the part of a student in Delhi to demand immediate decision by governments to reopen physical schools in a time bound manner when the entire country does not know whether or not the third wave of the Covid pandemic is on the anvil or not.

“It is a misplaced PIL if not a publicity-seeking petition. The distribution of the severity of the Covid pandemic is not the same in all states. Does the situation in Kerala match with that of West Bengal or for that matter Delhi? How the Supreme Court can issue an omnibus order directing reopening of schools?” it asked. “As we read in newspapers and various other sources, the third wave may not be as severe as the second. The vaccination is going on apace. But, we cannot equate the pandemic situation in Kerala with that of Karnataka or West Bengal or for that matter Delhi. Some states, depending on the waning of the pandemic, are gradually reopening the schools. Let us leave the decision in this regard to the state governments. Even within a state, the pandemic situation may not be uniform. Some districts may have a high infection rate while in others it may be mild. What should be done about reopening of schools, must be left to the governments,” the bench said.

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