Court pulls up MCD for not providing uniforms to SC/ST school children

NEW DELHI, February 11: The Delhi High Court today pulled up the Municipal Corporation of Delhi MCD for its failure to provide school uniforms to children belonging to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in its primary schools this year. Expressing its dissatisfaction with the affidavit filed by the MCD counsel to explain the lapse, the division bench comprising justices Devinder Gupta and K.S. Gupta asked the MCD to file another affidavit within two weeks.

The MCD has an annual budget of Rs 3.4 crore for providing school uniforms to poor children studying in its 1,800 primary schools in the Capital. This year, however, the MCD decided to provide them warm jersies, but the plan was shelved midway, resulting in a PIL by advocate Ashok Aggarwal. The MCD, in its affidavit, had explained that though they had failed to provide the jersies, the amount left unutilised would be clubbed with next years8217;s budget to provide jersies to all the nine lakh school children, irrespective of their caste and creed. A moratorium would be demanded from the government to prevent the current year8217;s budget from lapsing, the MCD said.

Aggarwal has also demanded that all the needy children be provided with a complete uniform, along with shoes. He contended that the provision for providing complete uniforms both winter and summer to every primary school child was implicit in the right to education for children up to the age of 14 years or the eighth standard, whichever was earlier, irrespective of the section of the society they belonged to.