The Madras High Court Bench here has directed the State government to enact, within six months, a new comprehensive law governing the management, grant of recognition, provision of grant-in-aid and service conditions for teaching and non-teaching staff of all private schools in the State. Justices S. Tamilvanan and V.S. Ravi issued the direction to the School Education Secretary on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed and argued by T.N. Vidyanandan, an 85-year-old retired headmaster of Sourashtra Higher Secondary School, an aided linguistic minority institution based here.
The petitioner had challenged the Constitutional validity of a G.O. passed on September 14, 1977 for granting recognition and providing grant-in-aid to minority schools after the High Court on December 17, 1975 declared many sections of Tamil Nadu Recognised Private Schools (Regulation) Act, 1974 inapplicable to institutions run by minorities. He claimed that it was unfair on the part of the government to have been providing aid to minority schools for the last 37 years on the basis of a G.O. that did not have any statutory value. He also pointed out that the government had admitted in its counter affidavit that the G.O. was passed as an ad hoc arrangement to overcome difficulties faced by the government after the 1975 High Court order.
In his counter affidavit, S. Vedarathinam, Deputy Secretary, School Education Department, said that the 1977 G.O. was in force till date because of a status quo order passed by the Supreme Court in 2003 while setting the High Court’s 1975 order and remitting the matter for fresh consideration.
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