Rajasthan High Court: While disposing off a public interest litigation filed by Abhyutthanam Society for ensuring effective implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 the court said that the State Government is not competent & holding any authority to re-write the definition of Sec.2 (d) of the Right to Education Act, 2009, the Court also directed the State government to include children belonging to OBC & SBC categories whose parents’ annual income not exceeding Rs.2.50 lakhs as part of the notification on March 28 this year for “child belonging to disadvantaged group”, as contemplated under section 2(d) of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. Children whose parents or guardians annual income do not exceed Rs.2.50 lakhs be considered as “child belonging to weaker section”, as per section 2(e) of the Act, 2009 and both the substitution be made part of the present notifications issued by the State Government on 28 March this year.
The petitioner argued that the Parliament intended to achieve the constitutional goal of equality of opportunity through inclusive elementary education to all by enacting the Act of 2009, which can be traced from paragraphs 4 & 5 of the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill and the State Government under its impugned Notifications debars the major segment of children who are eligible to be considered for admission under the Act of 2009 and debarring members of OBC & SBC, according to the petitioner, is violative of Art.14 of the Constitution.
The division bench comprising of Ajay Rastogi C.J. and D C Somani J. gave these two substitutions: Let the child belonging to OBC & SBC whose parents’ annual income does not exceed Rs.2.50 Lacs be also included as part of the Notification dt.28.03.2016 of the appropriate Government for “child belonging to disadvantaged group”, as contemplated u/Sec.2(d) of the Act, 2009; and The children whose parents/guardians annual income does not exceed Rs.2.50 lakhs be considered as “child belonging to weaker section”, as contemplated u/Sec.2(e) of the Act, 2009 and both the substitution be made part of the present Notifications dt.28.03.2016 issued by the State Government in exercise of powers conferred by Cl.(d) & (e) of Sec.2 of the Act, 2009. The Bench further said that with these two modifications, the writ petition stands disposed of and the respondents are directed to consider the categories which are now being included under the present order and initiate the process for inviting applications and admission to various schools without any further loss of time so that students to be admitted may not suffer their studies for the present academic session.
The Court further said “Since the applications for admission in terms of the new notifications have been received, we have the option either to quash and set aside both the notifications issued by the state government or fill the gap which according to us may be in fulfilment of provisions of Sec.2(d) & 2(e) of the Act 2009, and add the section of the ‘disadvantaged group’ and ‘weaker section’ which are missing and deprived from being considered under the two separate heads covered. [Abhyutthanam Society. v. State of Rajasthan, 2016 SCC OnLine Raj 1947, Decided on 13.05.2016]
