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160. Since some private unaided schools and Government schools like Kendriya Vidyalayas are using Synchronous Face-to-Face Real Time Online Education as a method/mode for teaching, they will have to ensure that the students belonging to EWS/DG category have access and are able to avail the same. As online learning facility is nothing but a virtual classroom, i.e. simulation of a physical classroom by replacing dissemination of instructions in direct physical presence by virtual dissemination, by not providing the required indispensable equipment to the EWS / DG category students (who, otherwise, are not in a position to buy /source such equipment from their own means) the schools are putting a financial barrier qua such students and thereby preventing them from opening the link and pursuing and completing their elementary education in the present pandemic at par with other students in the same class. Consequently, the right of EWS/DG children under Section 3 of the RTE Act, 2009 has been clearly undermined by such schools and same amounts to a vertical divide, digital divide or digital gap and segregation of EWS/DG students.

163. Consequently, to ensure level playing field and to remedy this digital divide or digital gap or ‗digital apartheid‟ in addition to segregation, if the private unaided school has to bear any additional cost, it must bear it in the first instance with a right to claim reimbursement from the State in accordance with Section 12(2) of the RTE Act, 2009.

OBLIGATIONS OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE GOVERNMENTS UNDER THE RTE ACT, 2009

186. Consequently, intra-class discrimination, especially inter-se 75% fee paying students viz-a-viz 25% EWS/DG students‟ upsets the ‗level playing field' and amounts to discrimination as well as creates a vertical division, digital divide or digital gap or „digital apartheid' in addition to segregation in a classroom which is violative of RTE Act, 2009 and Articles 14, 20 and 21 of the Constitution.

THANKS

187. This Court places on record its appreciation for the assistance rendered by all counsel who appeared in the present matter.

POST SCRIPT

193. This Court clarifies that it has answered the issues raised in the writ petition in accordance with the Constitution and RTE Act, 2009. However, nothing stated herein prevents the Legislatures as well as Executive from re-examining the issues and taking a fresh decision with regard to use and availability of technology and digital means of education as this Court is of the view that the present pandemic is both a challenge as well as a generational opportunity to re-imagine education by removing connectivity barriers and related equity gaps and take a quantum jump by assimilating and incorporating latest technology that helps in providing and delivering quality education. The new initiatives could even bridge the digital divide between different schools and between fee paying and non fee-paying students that has become evident during the Covid-19 crisis. At a time, when benefits have started showing results under social welfare Acts and Schemes, the digital divide has started threatening the homogeneity. If the poor and needy do not have access to digital education and if the State does not come forward to provide the much needed access to the Digital Education for the disadvantaged sections, the dreams of the founding fathers of Constitution would be in jeopardy.