RTE quota students can’t seek transfer to unaided schools: HC
The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC) on Monday held that students admitted under the 25℅ quota under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education or Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 cannot seek transfer to some unaided school as a matter of right, and dismissed petition filed by parents of 23 students from Nagpur seeking admission to an unaided school.
The bench of justice RK Deshpande and justice Anil Kilor said section 5 of the RTE Act confers a right on children to seek transfer to some other school, if they are not able to complete elementary education in their existing school for whatever reason. The right, however, comes with a rider that the school where transfer is sought should not be a special school or an unaided school not receiving any grant to meet its expenses from the government or the local authority, the bench added.
It dismissed the petition noting that the school, where the parents sought admission for their wards in fifth standard, was an unaided school, and therefore the petitioners could not seek transfer to the school as a matter of right.
The parents had moved HC after the school where their children are enrolled shut down from the academic year 2020-21. They had invoked provisions of the RTE Act to secure admissions for their wards in a school run by JK Education Society at Koradi in Nagpur.
It was argued on their behalf that the children had cleared Class 4 from a school run by JK Education Society, and therefore in natural course they should be admitted in the school at Koradi. They also argued that denial of admission to the Koradi school was in breach of the right of children under RTE Act.
The education society, however, maintained that the closed down school and the school at Koradi were legally different entities though run by the same management, and since the school at Koradi was unaided, the wards of the petitioners could not be admitted there.
HC accepted the argument advanced on behalf of the management and dismissed the petitions also in view of the fact that the education officer had given 25 different options to the petitioners for admitting their wards in Class 5.
RTE quota students can’t seek transfer to unaided schools: HC
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