School Cannot Shirk Responsibility of Free Education to Children: High Court

NEW-DELHI: The Delhi High Court has said that providing free and compulsory education to children between the ages of 6 and 14 is a fundamental right under the Constitution and schools cannot shirk this responsibility. The court cannot ignore the fact that the backward sections of the society should be given equal opportunities to advance in life.

In such a situation, the children of the economically weaker sections should be given an opportunity of education like other children to bring them into the mainstream of the society. If admission is denied under Weaker Category on unjustified grounds, the seats allotted under this category will stand wasted. The court said that such a situation cannot be allowed, as doing so will not only deprive the poor class child of quality education, but also violate the right to education and Article-21A of the Constitution.

The Court said that the school administration cannot abdicate its responsibility under the Constitution to provide free education to the children. A bench of Justice Mini Pushkarna made the above observation and directed the petitioner children to approach the GD Goenka Public School administration within a week for admission in Class-1st. Along with this, the school administration has been asked to complete the process of document verification of the petitioner children immediately. The court also directed that if the petitioner children face any difficulty, the Directorate of Education should help them get admission in the school.

It is worth mentioning here that three children including Shahnaz Khatun had filed a petition saying that the Directorate of Education had allotted them GD Goenka Public School through draw in the EWS quota for admission in the first class but the school administration had refused to give them admission on different grounds. The petition states that one petitioner was denied admission on the ground that his address was not available, while another petitioner was denied admission on the ground that his residence was four miles away from the school. The school's counsel said that the residence of the petitioner is too far from the school and admission cannot be granted. The lawyer said that the school does not provide any transport to the areas where the petitioners live.