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Journalism of Courage
Dismissing a petition filed by a primary school seeking grant-in-aid from BMC,Bombay High Court ruled on Monday that allocation of funds is a policy decision that the civic body can alone take.
A person is not entitled to allocation of funds for a given purpose merely because there are surplus funds with respondent No 1 (BMC) and that the budget is not in deficit, a division bench of Justices S J Vazifdar and Mridula Bhatkar said.
The court said the question that required consideration is that whether the school (see box) was entitled to grant-in-aid under any policy or law.
After referring to the rules under the grant-in-aid code for approved private primary schools in Greater Bombay,the court noted that every recognised school is not entitled to grant-in-aid. And for securing the grant-in-aid one of the conditions is whether the money with the primary education department is adequate for meeting the demands of new schools.
BMCs counsel A Y Sakhare told the court that after January 13,2004,no new schools had been given grant-in-aid.
Relying on the financial budget of the BMC for the years 2008-09 to 2011-12,the schools lawyer Sureshkumar Panicker said the corporation had enough funds and hence,the school should be given grant-in-aid.
Even assuming that there is no deficit and that there are surplus funds with the Respondent No 1,allocation of funds is a policy decision which Respondent No 1 alone is entitled to take, the court said. Public bodies like the Respondent No 1 have various commitments. It is for them to decide the priorities in this regard….It hardly requires elaboration that there would be many compelling/conflicting demands from other sources on the first respondents funds, the court observed.
The case
Ujjwal Shikshan Sanstha,which runs Anudatta Vidyalaya Hindi Primary School (AVHPS) in Kandivali (East),had moved the High Court urging it to direct the BMC to sanction grant-in-aid for the school
Between July 2007 and August 2011,the school had made several requests to the BMC for grant-in-aid. On September 17,2011,the BMC informed the school that it was not among the 33 primary schools that had been given the grant-in-aid and rejected its application
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