HC dismisses pvt schools' plea challenging RTE admission guidelines

Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed the petition filed by Federation of Private Schools and Associations of Punjab challenging Punjab govt's notification and guidelines for implementation of Section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act, 2009. The federation had contended that children seeking admission under Section 12(1)(c) should first be admitted in govt schools, then aided schools and specified-category schools, and only later in private unaided schools. The court rejected this contention. The court recently held that Section 2(n) of the RTE Act does not prescribe any order of priority among the four categories of schools. It said the provision did not suggest that a child must exhaust one category before approaching the next and that it was impermissible to read into a definition clause a substantive rule of priority which Parliament had not enacted. The court made it clear that private unaided schools covered by Section 12(1)(c) have a legal duty to reserve at least 25% of their Class I seats for children from weaker and disadvantaged sections of society. The court also upheld Punjab govt's mechanism for implementing RTE admissions, including online applications, school mapping, calculation of 25% seats and allotment through an online draw of lots. The judgment also records that reimbursement to eligible private unaided schools is governed by Section 12(2) of the RTE Act, with the guidelines providing the administrative mechanism for such reimbursement. Action Committee for RTE Act, Punjab, at its recent meeting held in Mohali welcomed the judgment and expressed the hope that private schools will now immediately admit all children whose names have been allotted/approved through the online RTE admission process. The committee noted that many parents had been facing considerable difficulty in securing admission despite their children being allotted seats through the online portal and had been running from private schools to offices of education authorities. You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Chandigarh | Silver Rate in Chandigarh | Bank Holidays in Chandigarh | Public Holidays in Chandigarh | Chandigarh AQI | Weather in Chandigarh | Petrol Price in Chandigarh | Diesel Price in Chandigarh | CNG Price in Chandigarh | LPG Price in Chandigarh Stay updated with the latest Chandigarh news. Download the TOI App.