Expressing displeasure over the Maharashtra government not filing a reply affidavit in the petitions challenging the amendment to the Right to Education Act, the Bombay High Court said it cannot keep “admissions of kids in a limbo”.
The HC, on May 6, has stayed the government resolution of February 9 wherein private unaided schools – with a government-run school within 1km radius – were exempted from admitting children under the Act. The HC had allowed the schools to complete the process of accepting forms under RTE, but not allocate seats under the act.
However, the issue arose as the private unaided schools intervened saying that they had already granted admission to other children on the seats which it would have otherwise kept vacant for the RTE quota. They said they initiated the admission process for the academic year 2024-25 in February / March itself.
The HC had then directed the schools to provide details of the private students admitted on these seats.
On Tuesday, application was filed by the Association of Unaided Schools, which has 139 schools as its members, urging the court to vacate the stay on the February 9 GR as they have already admitted students.
Additional government pleader Jyoti Chavan informed the court that the schools have not provided them with the details hence they have not been able to file their reply affidavit.
“On May 5, all schools were asked to provide details. They have not informed us till now, so that we can deal with it,” Chavan said.
The court was, however, irked and said that the government could have at least filed the affidavit dealing with the main issue of the challenge to the amendment.
“You have to file the affidavit about the validity of the amendment. Dealing with data is another issue. We can’t keep admissions of these kids in a limbo,” a bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar said.
Advocate Mihir Desai, appearing for one of the petitioners, informed the bench that the procedure of admission of aided schools is also halted because of the stay order.
Advocate Gayatri Singh, appearing for another petitioner, said that the academic year has commenced in most of the schools. “Suppose we are not allocated schools of our choice then we will be left in limbo as we may not get admission in other school as well,” Singh added.
The HC has kept the matter for hearing on July 11.
