RTE Act : Supreme Court Issues Notice On PIL To Enforce 25% Reservation In Private Schools For Disadvantaged Students

“Section 12(1)c of the RTE Act was on the way to bridge the gap in the education system of the country. However, the children are not getting the benefit of the beneficial provision in 11 states and four union territories. This section is in furtherance of the fundamental rights of children as guaranteed under Articles 14, 21 and 21A of the Constitution, as well as the Directive Principles of State Policy and the constitutional goals of equality and justice as enshrined in the Preamble. Further, Article 28 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child also provides for free education at the primary level. Not only have the governments in India failed to abide by the obligatory convention even after the enactment of the Right to Education Act, 2009, but they have also failed to discharge their constitutional and statutory obligation of providing free education to children from weaker sections and disadvantaged groups in private schools.”

“There was a similar petition,” recalled Justice Joseph, referring to another public interest litigation petition filed by Ahmad, in which he sought the enforcement of the Act in educational institutions for the benefit of minority students. Expressing grave concern over the union government’s decision to abruptly withdraw, from the year 2022-2023, a scholarship provided by the minority affairs ministry under the pre-matric scholarship scheme to students of first to eighth standard belonging to minority communities, Ahmad had urged Section 12(1)(c) of the Act to be urgently implemented. However, Justice Joseph, after hearing the submissions, had asked, “Why are you limiting it to the minority communities alone? Members of all communities belonging to the weaker sections should get the benefit.” Acting on his advice, Ahmad had decided to withdraw the petition. “I will amend my prayer. I do not want the issue to die down,” the petitioner had pledged.

“Is this the same matter?” Justice Joseph asked. Yes, the counsel responded. The revised writ petition had a wide ambit insofar as it no longer dealt only with minority students as the beneficiaries of the welfare provision. “Now we want the RTE Act to be implemented across the board, in light of the interest of everyone,” Khurshid informed the bench.

“The scholarships become irrelevant once free education is available. But only in 18 states and union territories has the particular provision of the Act been implemented,” Khurshid submitted. According to the petition, despite the act being notified to have been enforced in the whole of India by the central government way back in 2010, Clause (c) of Sub-section (1) of Section 12 has not yet been implemented in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, Sikkim, Telangana, and West Bengal, and the union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry, and Ladakh. This information, Ahmad has claimed, was obtained from the education ministry in response to an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005.

In the petition, the 2017-18 household survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation has been cited, which puts the total number of out-of-school children in India between the ages of six and 17 years at 32.2 million. According to the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report published by the Union Ministry of Education, the dropout rate among primary students went up from 0.8 per cent in 2020-21 to 1.45 per cent in 2021-22, and among upper primary students from 1.9 per cent to 3.02 per cent. “In light of Article 21A of the Constitution and the RTE Act, both union and state governments are bound to bring the out-of-school children in the schools and formal education system,” the petitioner has claimed, “However, it is clear that instead of bringing children under the formal education system, they have failed to even decrease the dropout rate of students of classes I to VIII.”

Case Title

Md. Imran Ahmad v. Union of India & Ors. | Writ Petition (Civil) No. 141 of 2023

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