Will issue modified circular for RTE admissions, 25 % quota only for self-financed schools: State govt

The students admitted under 25 per cent RTE quota are given fee concessions, and the state government reimburses private unaided schools for the same.

This comes a day after the court, through an interim order, had stayed the operation of the rule that exempted private unaided schools from 25 per cent reservation for class 1 admissions for students from weaker sections and disadvantaged groups.

On Monday, a division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Arif S Doctor had stayed until further orders the operation of the February 9 notification of the Maharashtra government.

The said notification had exempted private schools within a one-kilometre radius of government or aided schools from Right to Education (RTE) Act quota admissions.

Maintaining that the matter contained “overwhelming public interest,” the bench had held that the impugned amendments contravened the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, also known as the RTE.
On Tuesday, the bench was hearing a PIL by NGO Vidhayak Bharati and one Santosh Shinde, which challenged circulars or communications issued by the government on March 6 and April 3 to implement its February 9 notification.

The petitioners through advocate Swanand Ganoo claimed that the impugned circulars required aided government schools to register as being available for 25 per cent reservation even though they were not eligible to give such admissions as they already provide free primary education.

Additional Government Pleader (AGP) Jyoti Chavan for the state government, however, submitted that the petitioners’ apprehension was not appropriate as the department, through impugned circular had merely sought some information from the aided schools.

AGP Chavan further made submissions based on instructions from Ramdas Dhumal, Desk Officer, School Education who was present in the court.

She said that the March 6 circular, in light of May 6 interim order of HC, shall be construed only to mean that 25 per cent reservation for the children from economically weaker and disadvantaged sections of the society shall be confined to self-financed schools, police welfare (unaided) schools and self-financed schools run by municipal corporations.

The same will not apply to any other category of school mentioned in March 6 circular, she added.

Chavan added that the April 3 circular related to implementation of the amended rule will be modified in view of the interim order of the court and a fresh circular will be issued in due course.

The court issued notice to respondent authorities in the PIL seeking their affidavits in reply and posted further hearing to June 12, this year.

‘Meanwhile, self-financed and unaided schools emphasised that they have never denied to admit children under RTE, and highlighted that the problem started with delays in reimbursement of fees of these students which the state government is liable to pay.

Stating that it is important to now see what the state’s new circular states, SC Kedia, secretary of Unaided Schools’ Forum in Mumbai, said, “With the stay, the state will now have to send children to private unaided schools. This means that it will also increase their liability. Already over Rs 2,000 crore is pending in reimbursement on which a different litigation is ongoing in Aurangabad and in Bombay High Court. Private schools have been discharging their obligation of giving admission under RTE. But the state government, by not paying the reimbursement, is creating heavy loss for us making private schools unviable with increasing financial liability.”