Delhi HC asks Centre for representation on policy for children on online game addiction

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the government to decide the representation regarding the formulation of a policy to save children from being addicted to online games. A division bench of the high court presided by Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh passed the orders on a plea filed by an NGO Distress Management Collective (DMC). In its plea, the DMC has sought direction from the Centre to consider formulating a national policy to protect the children from online games addiction and also to constitute a regulatory authority to monitor and rate the content of both offline and online games.

As the matter came up for hearing before the court, Advocate Robin Raju appearing for the petitioner told the court that its a persistent problem that has increased during the pandemic as the children are more exposed to phones due to the switching of classes on online mode.

"Countries like China where these online games have been developed have also taken this seriously and passed certain directions to the game developers to make some tweaks in order to save the children from online games addiction," submitted Advocate Raju before the court.

Following these submissions and noting that a representation has already been preferred the court ordered, "We hereby direct the concerned respondent authorities to decide the representation of the petitioner in accordance with law, rules, regulations and government policies applicable to the facts and circumstances of the case," said a division bench of the court presided by Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh. 

The petitioner Distress Management Collective (DMC), a trust through Advocates Robin Raju and Deepa Joseph stated that the petition has been preferred on receiving numerous complaints from parents who are concerned about their children getting addicted to online games and as a result of which show various psychological problems. The recent news of children committing suicides, or going into depression and also committing crimes like theft due to online game addiction only compelled the petitioner organization to move the instant petition.

“The pandemic period has posed a major problem in controlling and monitoring children from excessive gadget use. As classes are now online so parents are not in a position to reprimand children for being with a mobile phone like they did in the past. There are numerous studies which show the adverse impact of online games on the psyche of both young children (6-10 years) and Adolescents (11-19 years). The leading medical journal The Lancet in its research to show the effect of Media violence and youth aggression came to the conclusion that people are more likely to behave aggressively in the real world when they identify with a violent character,” the plea said.