NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has issued a notice to a school for suspending and initiating disciplinary action against the headmistress after she refused to pay Rs 70,000 as donation for the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
Justice Kameshwar Rao issued the notice to the school authorities, the Samarth Shiksha Samiti, a trust run by the RSS, and the Directorate of Education, Delhi government. According to the petition, a target to collect or contribute Rs 70,000 to Rs 1,00,000 was given by the samiti in February this year to all schools run by it for the mandir’s construction.
The staff was also asked to convince students or their parents to contribute or to visit the marketplace for donations from shopkeepers or the general public. Apart from this, the school had also been collecting Rs 15,000 from teachers in the name of Samparn Nidhi fund.
According to the writ petition, the headmistress is facing an extreme financial crisis after her husband met with a serious accident in 2016. “Despite extreme financial constraints, the woman donated Rs 2,100 for the Ram Mandir and refused to pay Rs 15,000 for samarpan this year. Since that day, the samiti has been vindictive and has been cooking up conspiracies to harass the petitioner so that either she should resign herself or would be terminated,” the writ petition said.
With the family’s financial and mental burden, the headmistress filed a complaint with the Directorate of Education. She also wrote a letter to the Delhi chief minister, after which a show-cause notice was issued to the school. Following this the school suspended her and initiated an inquiry. She has dismissal of the suspension orders and requested that she be transferred to a school run by the society near her residence on compassionate grounds.