Poor to get 25% seats in schools

Unaided minority schools "excluded" from Act

The Supreme Court on Thursday put its stamp on the validity of the Right to Education Act’s provision, making it mandatory for private schools to admit 25 per cent students from weaker sections of the society to supplement the government’s efforts on universalisation of elementary education. But the verdict on the validity of the Act came with a dissenting order by one of the judges in a three judges’ bench, headed by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia.

Making the law enforceable with immediate effect, the majority verdict by CJI Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar said the provisions of RTE Act passed by Parliament in 2009 would have to be compulsorily implemented by four categories of schools in the country; those in the public sector, run by private education societies getting aid from the government, unaided private schools and the minority

schools getting government aid.

However, the SC “excluded” the minority schools not getting any aid from the government from the ambit of the Act, saying extending the law to them would amount to “violating” Arti

cle 30(1) of the Constitution, which gave the minorities a right to run educational institutions “exclusively” for their children if they are not provided any aid. Chief Justice of India S.H Kapadia-led Supreme Court bench passed the order with a 2:1 majority in which it upheld the constitutional validity of the Right To Education (RTE) Act, providing for reservation of 25 per cent seats for poor children in all government, private aided and unaided schools but not in minority institutions.

While Justices Kapadia and Swatanter Kumar gave the majority verdict,

K.S. Radhakrishnan, who gave a dissenting judgement, said that the provision for 25 per cent com pulsory free seats would not apply either to unaided private institutions or to unaided minority schools. However, the majority verdict described the RTE Act as a legislation which is a necessity for the country where a vast section of the children were left out.

It said that the law was in “conformity” with “Directive Principles of State Policy” listed in the Constitution, setting a goal for the government to provide “free and compulsory” education to children up to the age of 14.

Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal was happy with the verdict, but said litigation should not be seen as a victory or defeat.

CJI says use of RTI going beyond limit CJI S.H. Kapadia on Thursday said the RTI law was “good“ but there should be a limit as information was being sought on issues such as attending lunches. “It is going beyond a limit,“ he said.