Right to Education is a constitutionally valid right: SC-India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The Supreme Court on Thursday declared that the Right to Education is a constitutionally valid right. Speaking to reporters after the verdict was announced on Thursday, advocate Ashok Aggarwal said the Supreme Court passed a historic judgment, adding that the RTE would be applicable to all the schools except unaided minority run schools. “The Supreme Court’s judgment today is a historic judgment. The Supreme Court has declared the provisions of Right to Education to be constitutionally valid. Expected for the unaided minority schools, it (RTE) will be applicable to all the schools. Whether it is a government school, government aided school, whether it is under the specified category or unaided private schools,” said Aggarwal. He further said the apex court laid emphasis on RTE being more child centric than institutional centric. “The second most important observation of the Supreme Court is that the Right to Education should be seen from a child centric angle and not from an institutional angle,” added Aggarwal. The passing of the judgment will now ensure that 25 percent of the seats in schools are reserved for the economically weaker sections of the society and will be applicable in all schools including private schools. The Supreme Court has however said that the admissions already made will not be disturbed. Earlier, various private unaided institutions had filed petition in the Supreme Court contending that the Act violates the rights of private educational institutions under Article 19(1)(g) which provided autonomy to private managements to run their institutions without governmental interference. The Centre in its argument had said that the act calls for “moving towards composite classrooms with children from diverse backgrounds, rather than homogeneous and exclusivist schools”.

Right to Education constitutionally valid: SC