Schools asked to reply by October 6
Hearing a public interest litigation (PIl) against the denial of admission to the underprivileged and economically backward students, violating the provisions of the Right to Education Act, the Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday issued notices to 25 private schools seeking a reply till October 6.
Petitioner Rajan Kumar Singh appeared before a division bench comprising acting Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice PP Bhatt in-person and argued his case. “Provisions of the Act are being extensively violated by the unaided non-minority private schools in the city under which they are supposed to fill up at least 25 percent of the seats with the underprivileged economically backward students, but according to the survey conducted by an organisation, even their application forms were denied without giving any reasons in a non-transparent way,” said petitioner Rajan Kumar Singh.
The schools which have been issued notices include – JVM Shyamli, several schools of DAV group, Cambrian Public School, Delhi Public School, St. Aloysius School, Bishop Westcott, Firayalal School and Oxford Public School etc.
The PIl was filed by Singh in July last after a survey was conducted by the organisation ‘Pratigya’ following which it was revealed that the provisions of RTE have been extensively violated by these schools. Singh is the founder and managing trustee of ‘Pratigya’.
According to Singh, the State Government, District Education Superintendent of Ranchi and the Central Government have also been issued notices by the court.
He further added that the State Government has not framed rules under the RTE provisions to fix the amount given to these schools per student.
Similarly, the Centre was to transfer funds to the State Government for the purpose, which has also not been done so far, added Singh.
“The court, which was quite co-operative and heard the case for over 45 minutes, asked the schools as to why those students were denied admission by them and why the State Government failed to frame the rules in this regard,” said Singh.
A list of 190 students whose applications were denied by schools have also been submitted to the court.
The list was earlier given to the DES, Principal Secretary, Director and the minister of the HRD department, getting no relief from them forcing Singh to file the PIl in the court.
“looking at the reasons given by the schools for their denial of admission under the Act, the court said that they were lame excuses and not adequate for denying admission,” said Singh.