The Madras High Court has said the recent videos being circulated on the social media of school students misbehaving with their teachers appeared to be because of the inability of teenagers to cope with the regular world after having been detained under four walls during the two-year COVID-19 pandemic period.
Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandira wrote that it was heartbreaking to see the youngsters indulge in highly irresponsible behaviour even with their teachers who must be revered. “Such events ring an alarm that the State and society should wake up to the situation forthwith,” the judge said.
He stressed that the State should involve the Education Department as well as the Social Welfare Department in an effective manner so that things did not go out of control. The parents as well as society too should shoulder the responsibility, the court added.
Commending Director-General of Police C. Sylendra Babu for sharing a video on the social media recently advising the school students not to indulge in such conduct, the judge said the advice given by the DGP not only to the students but also to the law enforcers “comes as a solace at this hour”.
The observations were made in a judgement delivered on a criminal revision case filed by a 15-year-old boy challenging his three-year detention in a government special home for impregnating a 17-year-old girl. The judge set aside the detention order passed by the Juvenile Justice Board in Tiruvallur district.
“This court feels that it may not be out of context to express here that the pandemic situation had created a fickleness in the minds of people and it totally changed the human life and their attitude towards even the neighbourhood. It had not only had much impact on the financial status of the public, but also their morality.
“For about two years, they had to detain themselves inside four walls or within a short circle and after they came out of such rigid period, people with mature minds could cope with their regular world, whereas, it appears, the teenagers face great difficulties... This could be visualized from the recent videos that had become viral,” the judge wrote.
