CHENNAI: Expressing satisfaction on the steps taken by the State government to ensure admission under Right To Education Act, the Madras High Court on Monday directed setting up of a monitoring committee within a week.
The first bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice TS Sivagnanam passed the orders on a PIL from Change India, seeking a single window online system for admission under the RTE Act.
When the petition came up for hearing, joint secretary, Department of School Education submitted a compliance report on directions issued by the court on June 2. One among the directions was to publish the data of total number of seats available under the 25 per cent RTE reservation in the department’s website.
It has been ensured that application forms are issued free of cost at schools and wide publicity was given in all schools by displaying banners with all information about the admission, the official submitted to the court. Total intake capacity and number of seats under RTE reservation available in all the schools was displayed in the notice board of the district level and block level education offices, and press releases were also given at district level about the admission, he added.
The report stated that as on June 19, 51,394 children were admitted throughout the State against 1.17 lakh available seats. “Show cause notices have been issued by the Director of Matriculation schools and the State chief nodal officer for RTE Act to school managements which have not admitted students under the Act. On receipt of explanation, appropriate action would be initiated against the schools,” it was submitted. Recording the submissions, the bench said, “In case of non-compliance or refusal of admission or demanding money for the seats, the same can be brought to the notice of the authorities. In order to facilitate this process a monitoring committee shall be set up ... so that aggrieved persons can approach the committee for redressal of their grievances.” The court posted the matter to October 9 for filing compliance.