India's Highest Court Declares Internet Access a Fundamental Right: What Universities Must Now Act On

A Ruling That Reaches Beyond Child Safety

On 15 October 2026, a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran of the Supreme Court of India held, in *Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish*, that the right to access and use the internet is a fundamental right of every individual — including children. The bench grounded this in Articles 21 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

Media coverage focused, understandably, on the child safety angle: the case arose from a petition on child sexual exploitation, and the court ordered safeguards against harmful content. But for India's university sector, the ruling carries a quieter implication that administrators should begin tracking now.

If internet access is a fundamental right, institutional denial of that access — whether through inadequate infrastructure, blocked connectivity, or operational neglect — acquires constitutional relevance in a way it did not before.

Why This Matters to Controllers of Examinations

Digital evaluation of answer scripts relies on three infrastructure layers: scanning stations that digitise physical booklets, a central server that hosts the image repository and marking platform, and evaluator-side connectivity — the internet connection through which subject experts access, annotate, and submit marks on scanned scripts.

The third layer is the one most often under-resourced.

When CBSE deployed on-screen marking for 1.8 crore Class 12 answer scripts in 2026, a recurring complaint from evaluators was unreliable home internet. Many teachers working from their own institutions reported connectivity problems that forced them to delay sessions or travel to better-connected sites. CBSE scrambled to provide help-desk support and extended session windows.

Those complaints now sit in a changed legal landscape. Universities that operate on-screen evaluation systems cannot treat internet availability as purely the evaluator's personal responsibility. The institutional role in ensuring adequate connectivity — for evaluators working at campus facilities, if not at home — is harder to disclaim after October 15, 2026.

The Connectivity Gap in Indian Academic Institutions

National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) data and institutional self-study reports paint an uneven picture of campus connectivity. Under the new MBGL (Maturity-Based Graded Levels) framework, NAAC's Criterion 4 (Infrastructure and Learning Resources) includes access to ICT infrastructure and digital networks as assessable parameters.

Institutions at MBGL Level 1 and 2 typically have basic broadband connectivity concentrated in administrative blocks and a subset of laboratories. Evaluator workstations — where teachers sit to mark papers during dedicated evaluation periods — are often afterthoughts in campus network planning.

An institution conducting on-screen evaluation with twelve subject evaluators simultaneously accessing high-resolution scan files will push a 10 Mbps line to saturation. A meaningful on-screen evaluation deployment requires, at minimum, 1-2 Mbps of sustained upload/download bandwidth per concurrent evaluator session.

Few institutions have benchmarked their campus networks against these operational requirements, because until recently there was no policy pressure to do so.

Three Institutional Actions Triggered by the Ruling

1. Audit evaluator workstations and network points

Before each examination cycle, institutions should map how many evaluators will be working concurrently, from which physical locations on campus, and what connectivity those locations actually deliver. This is a 30-minute exercise that most examination departments have never performed.

The output should inform the placement of scanning stations, the number of simultaneous evaluation sessions scheduled, and whether bandwidth upgrades are required ahead of a specific evaluation cycle.

2. Establish a minimum connectivity standard for off-campus evaluation

Several universities allow senior evaluators — particularly moderation heads and chief examiners — to mark scripts from their home or college offices. These arrangements need a minimum connectivity specification: typically 10 Mbps symmetric, stable, with a fallback provision if the primary connection fails.

This standard should be documented in the evaluator appointment letter and verified during the pilot session before live marking begins.

3. Align with NAAC Criterion 4 evidence requirements

NAAC assessors reviewing infrastructure under the new framework look for institutional evidence of ICT planning, not just current assets. A formal network capacity assessment, conducted annually and referenced in the Annual Quality Assurance Report (AQAR), creates documented evidence of institutional intent and progress.

Institutions that have invested in upgrading connectivity specifically to support digital evaluation can reference this in the relevant Criterion 4 metric. The upgrade does not need to be large — even moving from a shared 20 Mbps connection to a dedicated 50 Mbps line for the evaluation wing is documentable progress.

The Institutional Obligation, Precisely Stated

The October 2026 ruling does not create a legal mandate for universities to install specific bandwidth or buy particular hardware. Courts do not write ICT procurement specifications.

What the ruling does is shift the interpretive context. An institution that runs an on-screen evaluation program but provides evaluators no usable connectivity on campus — forcing them to mark on mobile data at their own cost — will find it harder to argue it has met its obligations under Article 21 as now interpreted, should a challenge arise.

More practically, the ruling strengthens the hand of Controllers of Examinations arguing internally for infrastructure budget. The argument that digital evaluation requires real connectivity investment is now backed by constitutional language, not just operational preference.

The Broader Pattern

India is mid-transition on digital evaluation. As of mid-2026, 74% of examination boards have adopted or are actively piloting on-screen marking. That transition is placing infrastructure demands on institutions that built their campuses around physical processes.

The Supreme Court's ruling is one of several signals — alongside UGC connectivity regulations, NAAC Criterion 4 requirements, and the practical experience of CBSE's 2026 deployment — that campus internet infrastructure is no longer a peripheral concern for examination departments. It is an operational foundation.

Institutions that have not yet mapped their connectivity needs against their digital evaluation plans should do so in the next examination cycle planning cycle. The tools, the policy context, and now the constitutional backdrop all point in the same direction.

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