RTE admissions: Bombay High Court says don’t want to keep students in limbo, to hear pleas on July 11

The HC on May 6 had stayed until further orders the operation of the February 9 notification. A division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar allowed certain institutions and associations of private schools to intervene in the matter and directed them to be added as party respondents in the matter in the “representative capacity”.

The court also asked the intervenors to file their affidavits in reply to the “lead” PIL challenging the February 9 notification. Additional Government Pleader Jyoti Chavan, for the state government, submitted that to file effective reply on behalf of authorities and to bring correct facts before the court, certain information including number of students admitted was sought from the institutions but most of them have not provided it yet.

“In these circumstances, we direct that all institutions from whom info is sought in respect of admission made shall be provided to the Director of Education within a week,” the bench noted.
The court sought the state’s common affidavit within ten days, followed by rejoinder by petitioners and asked parties to come prepared on the next date in view of “urgency” in the matter.

“We do not want to keep it (the pleas) in limbo. That’s in none’s interest,” the bench said and added that it will hear the pleas next month.

The court also continued an interim order in which the state government had submitted that till next date, no students will be allotted to the schools.

Over 2.5 lakh applications were received for admission to close to 1 lakh seats available under RTE, this year, in schools across Maharashtra. However, several parents have complained that they were in a fix due to pending litigation as their children remain without school admission despite the new academic year having begun.

“No schools will now give admission as the new academic year has already begun. And there is no clarity on what happens to RTE admission. This is going to cause a tremendous academic loss to children,” claimed one of the parents.

On the other hand, demanding to cancel the recent RTE notification on the amended rule, Mukund Kirdat from Aam Aadmi Party, an activist helping parents with RTE admissions, said, “In order to save academic loss it is important that the government cancels the notification. Generally, these admissions are over by March or April and now the new academic year has already started and these children who are from socially and economically backward sections of society are still out-of-school.”

Last week, the first round of the lottery for RTE admissions was also held but parents who were allotted seats are not able to confirm admission as schools are denying the same due to the pending court case.

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