BENGALURU: IN an interim relief to many minority educational institutions, the High Court on Monday stayed the government order mandating them to admit 25 per cent students under the Right to Education Act quota. The government had issued the order on June 18, 2014.
A division bench of Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee and Justice R B Budihal passed the interim order after hearing an appeal filed by a group of educational institutions.
The bench issued a direction to the state government not to impose any obligation or regulate the management of the petitioners’ schools in compliance of the RTE Act, particularly in the matter of admission of students under the RTE quota.
“We are passing this interim order as we feel that it requires a detailed hearing,” the bench said.
The bench also issued notice to the state and Central governments, the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, National Commission for Linguistic Minorities and others in this regard.
The National Public School, The International School and other minority schools filed a batch of writ appeals against the order of a single bench on January 16, 2017, dismissing their petitions which challenged the government order.
While dismissing the petitions, the single bench had ordered the state and Central governments to consider the applications filed by the managements seeking ‘minority’ certificate.
It also ordered the petitioners to admit extra 10 per cent students every year till it reaches 75 per cent (backlog), in addition to the annual quota of 25 per cent under the RTE Act, as they did not admit students under this quota from 2014 to 2017.
Challenging this, the managements of the schools contended that they were protected under Article 30 of the Constitution as being minority institutions, and also the apex court’s verdict declared that RTE was not applicable to minority institutions, whether unaided or aided.
The appellant schools’ applications seeking minority tag were pending before the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions and the single bench asked that the process be expedited.