In a huge setback to Kerala’s Congress-led UDF Government over the higher secondary scam, the High Court on Monday effectively cancelled sanction for the additional Plus-II batches and higher secondary status for schools the Government had allotted recently without the recommendation of the experts’ panel headed by the Higher Secondary Director.
As per the interim judgement pronounced by Justice PR Ramachandra Menon, admission procedures to the newly allotted additional Plus-II batches will have to be stopped immediately. The court has also termed invalid the allotment of Plus-II batches to schools without the basic facilities recommended by the six-member panel.
The judge stated that new Plus-II batches could be allowed only to schools recommended by the Higher Secondary Director. Observers say that the verdict justifies the allegation raised by Congress-led Government's critics that the recent allotment of Plus-II batches and higher secondary schools was arbitrary and with mysterious motives.
There were allegations that the Government had on July 23 approved sanctioning of additional Plus-II batches across the State with the intention of enabling leaders of parties in the ruling coalition to collect of bribes from schools where the new batches were allowed as school managements could collect donations for appointment of new teachers.
The court has, however, allowed admissions in the new batches in schools cleared by the panel headed by the Higher Secondary director. It observed that it was not clear from the concerned Government file whether the schools in question had met the required standards or whether any examination had been held to find out this.
The Government had argued that the new batches were allotted as per the recommendation of local MlAs but the court pointed out that this aspect was not clear from the concerned files. At the very start of the proceedings in the case, the court had sharply criticized the government for its inability to produce documents related to the criteria by which it had allotted the new batches.
The Government had sanctioned 131 new schools in panchayats with no higher secondary schools of which majority - 88 schools - were in the aided management sector while only 43 were in the Government sector. Apart from this, the Government also allotted additional Plus-II 411 additional Plus-II batches, causing allegations of corruption.
The left parties and the BJP sought the resignation of Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Educa-tion Minister PK Abdu Rabb of the Muslim league in the context of the court verdict. Deputy Opposition leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan of the CPI(M) and State BJP chief V Murale-edharan demanded a detailed probe into the Plus-II scam.
However, Abdu Rabb claimed that the verdict contained positive factors also and not just negative factors. Chandy refused to respond to allegations but said the verdict was not final and claimed that the court had not criticised the Government. The State Cabinet will discuss the interim judgement on Wednesday.
Monday’s court verdict is expected to affect Plus-II admissions in more than 100 schools, most of which are in the Malabar area where there was shortage of seats. This situation had allegedly arisen because of the arbitrary allotment of the batches in that region, to which Abdu Rabb belonged, without getting the schools' quality and infrastructure standards checked.
Several aided school managements had complained that local leaders of ruling parties had approached them to demand bribes for allotting new Plus-II batches. They had also said that they were allotted additional batches even when they did not ask for it while several schools which had applied for new batches and which were qualified had not got batches.
The Muslim Educational Society, the Hindu upper caste Nair Service Society - both managing several schools - and many school managements belonging to the Christian Church had complained about the irregularities in the allotment of new Plus-II schools and batches.