A division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice N. Jayasurya directed the government not to coerce unwilling aided schools to accept its merger offer and that necessary instructions be given to the officers concerned to disburse the grants-in-aid as usual until the slew of petitions filed against the merger are adjudicated.
The court was hearing several petitions filed by aided schools’ managements and students against the Ordinance (No.12/2021) which the government issued on August 6 to make certain amendments to the Education Act, 1982 to facilitate the merger/takeover and the consequential G.O. (Ms.No.50) dated August 17. The next hearing is scheduled for October 28 and the government is to file a counter by October 22.
Appearing for the Education Department, government pleader K. Raghuveer said grants-in-aid were being given to even those aided schools which refused to merge with the government and that the Commissioner of School Education had taken the required steps in that regard.
Representing the educational institutions, advocates N. Subba Rao, M. Devi Prasad and K. Siva Rama Krishna argued that the government resorted to strong-arm tactics to implement the impugned Ordinance and the G.O which were violative of the Education Act, Article 21-A of the Constitution and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.
The crux of the matter is their allegation that the government intended to withhold, reduce or withdraw grants payable to the aided schools without holding the due process of consultations. The result was forcible takeover of the institutions, which has far-reaching consequences for the education sector as a whole.
