CHENNAI: Madras high court has prevented authorities from bringing school children to attend centenary celebrations of former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran.
In the petition filed by Change India, its director A. Narayanan has submitted that the government decided to celebrate the centenary celebration of former Chief Minister Ramachandran in a grand manner over a period of six months starting from June 30, 2017 till December 31, 2017, culminating in a grand function in January next year. Public meetings were conducted at Madurai, Palladam, Tiruvannamalai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Erode, Vellore, Namakkal and Nagapattinam districts so far.
The government has scheduled to hold similar event in Salem on September 30 and other places in the coming weeks. Several thousands children from government, government-aided and unaided schools were forced to attend these public meetings and to greet the Chief Minister and other political leaders enroute and at the venue.
A representation was sent to the authorities on August 30 requesting to take steps to protect the children and not coerce them to attend meetings. He feared that “there is every likelihood that thousands of children will be put to lot of avoidable inconvenience and cause them harm by bringing them to the venue in buses”.
Hence, he sought an interim injunction to Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary, Department of School Education from bringing school children to attend MGR centenary public meetings and all other public functions held at venues outside schools.
When the matter came up for hearing before division bench comprising, Justices S. Vaidyanathan and R. Subramanian said that Chief Secretary, DGP and Principal Secretary, Department of School Education shall not take the children who attend the centenary celebrations - public meetings or any other meetings organised in connection with the centenary celebration of former chief minister MGR.
Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary, School Education Department has filed a petition on Wednesday evening in the high court to vacate stay granted in the morning for bringing the school children to the public meeting and stated that motivational programme has been conducted for the benefit of the school students in the meeting as part of the celebrations. The motivational programme conducted by Dr Kannan Girish, Chief Executive Officer of Live Life Education. The MGR centenary is not a political meeting, he added. The matter will come up for hearing before the court on Thursday in a special sitting.
Stalin asks education officials not to succumb to govt pressure
Welcoming Madras high court’s stay on forcible participation of school students in MGR centenary celebrations, the DMK on Wednesday asked officials in the education department not to succumb to pressure from government functionaries on such issues and waste their precious time.
In a statement, DMK working president Stalin accused Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and his deputy O. Panneerselvam of using the gover-nment platforms for “blowing their own trumpet” instead of listing achievements of late M.G. Ramachandran.
“Moreover, the government platforms, especially the MGR centenary celebrations being organised at the cost of the taxpayers’ money, are being used to criticise the DMK and talk about the internal feud in the AIADMK,” Stalin said in a statement.
Tamil Nadu government is organising MGR centenary celebrations in every district and there are allegations that school students are being forcibly taken to the venue to enure that the “hall is full.” In his statement, Stalin also accused the AIADMK government of making the students wait for “grueling long hours” wasting their precious time, which they could use it for their studies.
The leader of Opposition also asked the Chennai police to register a case under sections 326/341/34/120B IPC and 23 of Juvenile Justice Act against those who pierced the cheeks of more than 20 kids as part of ritual for the recovery of the then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.
