NEW DELHI: Supreme
Court today upheld the
constitutional validity of
the Right to Education Bill
making it mandatory for private
schools to reserve 25%
seats for children of economically
weaker sections
of society.
The RTE judgment will
come into effect from
Thursday and the court said
prior admissions would not
be affected.
A bench comprising Chief
Justice SH Kapadia and Justices
KS Radhakrishnan and
Swantanter Kumar, which
had reserved its verdict on
August 3 last year, upheld
provisions of the law which
made right to education a
fundamental right of children
in the age group of
6-14 years.
The RTE Act will be applicable
for day schools and
not for boarding schools.
The RTE Act will also not
be applicable in private minority
schools. Reacting to
the judgement, RTE campaigner
and lawyer Ashok
Aggarwal said, “I am happy
with the judgement. I am
hoping that overall it will be
a boost to the child centric
policy of the government.”
The order was passed on a
bunch of petitions by private
unaided institutions which
contended that the Act violates
the rights of private educational
institutions under
Article 19(1)(g) which provided
autonomy to private
managements to run their
institutions without governmental
interference.
During the marathon arguments
in the case which
went for many months, the
Centre had defended the law
saying it was aimed at uplifting
the socially and economically
weaker section of
society. The Centre had emphasised
the need to de-link
merit and talent from social
and economic differences
among different sections of
society and said that the act
calls for “moving towards
composite classrooms with
children from diverse backgrounds,
rather than homogeneous
and exclusivist
schools”.
The main petitioner Society
for Un-aided Private
Schools, Rajasthan, and a
host of associations representing
various private
schools questioned the
validity of the Act on the
ground that it impinged on
their rights to run the educational
institutions.
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