Madras High Court initiates suo motu proceedings to curb online games

Students are getting addicted to online games and this leads to conflicts at home, the court said

Taking a serious note of the youth getting addicted to online games leading to serious health issues, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday initiated suo motu proceedings in order to curb the menace of such online games, particularly explicit violent games.

A Division Bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and J. Sathya Narayana Prasad sought the response of the Central and the State governments in the case. The court also sought a response from the social media platforms in this regard.

Taking note of the fact that in 2020, the Centre had banned some Chinese online applications and games due to security reasons, the court wondered how these games were still available online.

School and college-going students are getting addicted to such online games and this leads to conflicts at home with siblings and parents. Some of them have also died by suicide due to addiction for such games, the court observed.

"There is an emergent need to curb the menace of these types of online games. We should sensitise the youth and more particularly, the students. The police and the social activists have got a definite role to play in this matter.

Parents have a primary responsibility to watch what their children are doing with their smartphones and computers. Those who are playing online games, must be given counselling and they should be made to uninstall the games", the judges observed.

Further, the judges observed that the future of the nation was in the hands of the younger generation, and they should be fit physically, psychologically, economically and socially.