Mumbai: The Bombay high court (HC) has slammed the state for not implementing the Right to Education Act (RTE) in the right manner and allowing its misuse. The tirade was prompted after the state informed the court in its affidavit that an earlier order by the Nagpur bench which insisted on conducting admissions under RTE in a step by step manner would result in more than 2 lakh students being denied admissions under the 25 per cent quota. The Court scolded the state for making such assumptions and asked it to re-submit the affidavit.
A division bench of justices B.R. Gavai and Bharati Dangre was hearing a writ petition filed by Balmohan Vidyamandir wherein it had prayed for directions to the state to provide details of the online admission procedure.
The petition pointed out that while the Act stressed on admitting students from Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of the society in neighbourhood schools, the state had only targeted private unaided schools and left out government schools, hence sought directions to the state to include those schools too.
Senior advocate Deepa Chawan while appearing for the petitioner informed the court through a rejoinder to the affidavit filed by the state pointed out that the entire process of allotting seats through online admission for the 25 per cent reserved quota seats was wrought with wrong doings of officials as students from beyond the one to three km radius as stipulated by the Act were being allotted seats in the petitioners school.
After hearing the submissions and perusing the affidavit filed by the state, the bench was furious by the averments wherein it had alleged that the compliance of the Nagpur bench order in the Amol Vasantrao case would frustrate the implementation of the Act.
“The order had asked the state to abide by the rules laid down by the Act, hence it is surprising that the state has made such averments,” said the bench.
“You ask private schools to admit students to the reserved quota but do not pay their fees on time as a result of which the schools are unable to pay salaries to the teachers,” said the bench and posted the matter for hearing next week.
