Taking a strong stand on the instruction “forcing” the schoolchildren to participate in the human chain on Saturday in support of total prohibition, the Patna High Court has summoned Director General of Police and Chief Secretary to appear in person on Friday in connection with the hearing of a PIl filed by an NGO.
A division Bench comprising of acting Chief Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Sudhir Singh asked the State Government the logic behind traffic restrictions and forced participation of school kids.
The PIl was filed by Forum for Public Interest litigations which referred to the Chief Secretary’s order on banning vehicular movement on January 21 on the State and National Highways for the formation of a 11,000 km long human chain to create awareness about the dangers of alcohol.
When additional advocate general lalit Kishore assured that the emergency services would remain exempted from the restriction, the bench pointed out that the movement of media vehicles have also been allowed. “It seems a publicity stunt of the Government by treating media as emergency service and giving them exemption for coverage,” the bench observed tersely.
Advocate Shashi Bhushan Kumar told the court that the District Education Officers (DEO) have issued directive to all the Government schools in their jurisdiction to ensure the participation of the children in the human chain with warning of withdrawing facilities and cancellation of their admission of the children staying away.
The government has given relaxation to the children only below five. The court wanted to know what the Government wanted to teach the small children about the prohibition and that the kids could not be forced to join it.
The human chain formation is the pet project of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who is making whirlwind tour of the State asking people to make the human chain a grand success and create a world record of the longest chain. Its coverage has been ensured by the drones and satellites and the Guinness Book of World Record. Apart from ruling alliance partners RJD and Congress the main opposition party BJP has also agreed to join the human chain keeping in view its social message.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Thursday showed an official letter of the DEO of Rohtas district directing all the headmasters of primary, middle and secondary schools to ensure participation of all the school children and their parents. If they don’t, the letter said, it would be construed that they have no interest in the Government sponsored programme. “The children should be told that their absence from the human chain will result into cancellation of their admission and they will be deprived from various facilities,” the letter warned.