A PIL HAS BEEN FILED TO BAN ONLINE AND OFFLINE GAMES THAT CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS ARE GETTING ADDICTED TOO

The division bench of Madras High Court, headed by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, has dismissed the PIL to ban online and offline games that children are currently addicted to. 

The court said, “Even constitutional courts should be slow in entering into such areas and dealing with such matters on the personal sense of morality of the individual complainant or the Judge or Judges concerned.”

The petitioner made a complaint in his plea that business corporations corrupt the minds of young children by launching their diverse games, which later becomes addictive. Therefore, the petitioner filed a PIL under article 226 of the Constitution of India for the issuance of a Writ of Mandamus directing the ban of online and offline games and also to take appropriate action to introduce a mechanism as to track the laptop and other devices used for playing online games.

By understanding the petitioner's concern, the court expressed that the educational institution and schools were closed during the lockdown; this leads many children and young adults to get hooked up with online gaming.

''There is no doubt that children and young adults these days are addicted to their phones, and their worlds appear to revolve around their mobile phones. Oftentimes, a family could be together and sitting at a table, but each member using the phone, even if to describe the dish that he may be having or the quality of food at the moment, the bench further asserted."

The court, understanding all the circumstances, said, “There is no doubt that when there is some illegal action or something detrimental to the larger public interest, constitutional courts intervene; but in the matters of the present kind, especially when elected governments are in place, such matters of policy should be left to the wisdom of those representing the people and having their mandate instead of the Court issuing a diktat”.

Author: Papiha Ghoshal