The Supreme Court on Monday expressed doubts over the purity of its 2014 decision, which excluded minority schools from the purview of the right of free and compulsory education act, 2009 (RTE).
RTE requires private schools to reserve 25% of entry-level seats for economically weaker sections (EWS) and other disadvantaged groups, but due to the 2014 decision, minority schools are exempted from this quota, which protected their rights to administer their institutions without such overroach mandate.
The case was referred to by the SC Bench of Justice Dipankar Dutt and Augustine George Maasih for the next stages, Bra Gawai, the Chief Justice of India, for the next stages. The bench noticed that the exemption – the ‘Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust vs. Union of India’ could not have been fixed correctly.
The bench, while hearing a related argument, implicated the issue as a constitutional conflict. It has been mentioned that Article 30 protects the rights of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions, while Section 12 (1) (C) of the RTE Act said that all schools accept at least 25% students of weaker sections and disadvantaged groups.
The bench was also shown documents such as a study by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights that pointed to misuse of exemption by minority schools.
It was observed that the decision in the 2014 case may be “inadvertently, threatening the very foundation of universal primary education”.
The bench said, “The RTE Act gives a fragmentation of general schooling vision from the exemption of minority institutions and weakens the idea of ​​inclusion and universality by Article 21A.”
It was also noted that the RTE Act says that children are entitled to many facilities, including infrastructure, trained teachers, books, uniforms and mid-day meals.
But minority schools excluded from the purview of RTE were also not forced to provide these facilities. “For many of these students, such benefits are not only facilities, but also confirmed the related, equality and recognition,” the top court said.
The judges thus implicated four questions for the idea of ​​a large bench.
To start, whether the decisions that give exemption to minority educational institutions, aided or without thinking, require reconsideration. Or if the entire RTE Act is declared wrong as it may apply to minority rights.
And if the RTE Act violates the rights of guaranteed minorities under the Constitution, should it be read to include children from special minority communities which are also related to EWS and deprived groups.
Furthermore, a large bench can consider whether the RTE exemption is against another article of the Constitution that says that no citizen will be denied admission on grounds such as breed, religion and gender.
For now, the bench said that RTE applies to existing inclusion and exemption.
