MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday quashed an order issued by the member-secretary of TN Model Schools (TNMS) on September 4, 2025, which instructed all government high and higher secondary schools to upload sensitive information about students belonging to 25 categories on EMIS portal under ‘Special Focus Students’ scheme.
A bench of justices G Jayachandran and KK Ramakrishnan passed the order while allowing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by A Ameer Alam of Madurai who had challenged the collection of data of students under three of the 25 categories.
Alam stated that while other categories are genuinely connected with the welfare of students, collection of information of students under three categories — students in conflict with law, students whose parents are prisoners, and students with refugee background — would affect their privacy.
Stating that many teachers collect the data openly in front of other students in classrooms and this can result in stigmatisation and psychological stress to the students, the petitioner requested the court to quash the three categories from the impugned order.
‘Info sensitive, may stigmatise students’
The counsel representing the member-secretary denied the charges and said the information, not collected publicly, is stored in a secure manner. She also filed a counter affidavit.
Hearing both sides, the judges observed that the purpose for collecting such data was not explained in the counter affidavit. Though authorities claim that information was proposed to be collected to show special attention to students, they have not mentioned what attention is going to be given, the judges said.
Stating that information sought to be collected is sensitive and might affect privacy of students, the judges said the order is an abuse of power, amounts to demoralising students from stigmatic background, would subject them to discrimination and ill-treatment, and quashed the order.