Article 21 of the Constitution of India embodies the fundamental right which guarantees the "right to life" that imposes upon the state the duty to protect it. The Supreme Court has held in a plethora of cases that the right to life includes the right to live with dignity and all that goes along with it, including the right to food. This article encompasses the right to have permanent, unrestricted, and regular access to qualitatively and quantitatively adequate and sufficient food.

Children are the wealth of this nation, stated Patna High Court. On the news report titled “School shut, no mid-day meal, children in Bihar village back to work selling scrap” which was published in the Indian Express, the Patna High Court took the Suo Motu cognizance. The Court believed that delay in acting on the present situation could lead to incurable long-term consequences on the health, development, and the general well-being of our children. The Bench was headed by the Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S Kumar.

To protect the welfare of the children, the Court stated that there are two major issues. First is regarding whether the state is fulfilling its constitutional and statutory mandate of providing food and nutritional security to children who have been adversely affected by the closure of Anganwadi centers and schools due to COVID-19. What measures can be adopted to prevent school children from indulging in garbage collection and begging becomes the secondary issue that arises is that with the closing down of schools.

Due to the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, students were kept away from schools and Anganwadi centers to restrict its spread but as a result of this many nutrition deficient children who rely heavily on government schemes to meet their daily nutrition requirements have been put at risk, the Patna High Court noted.

The Bench passed certain directions to the State Government which includes the following:

●      Along with textbooks and notebooks to government school students to continue schemes like the Midday Meal Scheme and the Sarwa Shiksha Scheme to provide meals or ration.

●      To ensure that statutory benefits under the Food Security Act are spent promptly, and updated records are maintained for the same.

●      To monitor the nutritional health of children by Anganwadi workers, so as to keep track of children’s growth by recording the weight and height of children at regular intervals.

●      To work with the experts to prepare digital lectures for students of all classes and age-groups.

●      To spread the message of the importance of continuing education through remote learning platforms and enhance the role of Anganwadi and NGO workers in every district. For ensuring the child’s continuous engagement in education during the pandemic, parents are to be educated as required.

●      To install community-level television sets and distribution of radio sets, to ensure the increase of reach of remote learning platforms. While maintaining social distancing norms at the community level, small batches of children can be shown lectures on televisions. 

●      To consider, devising and implementing an action plan to utilize mobile handset penetration and telephone penetration mediums. To ensure the possibility of a waiver of telecom charges on the mobile handset or telephone being used for accessing educational programs.

●      To mark the daily attendance of students, use Telecom/digital infrastructure. A call can be placed on the designated toll-free number which is programmed to record the daily attendance of the concerned student. And to ensure that a minimal dropout rate is achieved, organize a robust “Back to School” campaign in the wake of this pandemic.

●      Further, to ensure that teachers are well equipped in dealing with the post-pandemic psychosocial needs of children, workshops, and training for them ought to be provided.

The High Court further observed that if the above directions are implemented well, it had the potential to provide immediate relief to more than 1 crore 19 lakh school-going children across the State.

This news has been reported and prepared by Ms. Yashahsvi Kanodia & reviewed by Ms. Samreen Ahmed, Research Assistant, Research & Innovation Department, MyLawman.