MUMBAI: The Bombay high court in an important order on Friday upheld the Maharashtra government’s rules that specified two entry levels — one at the pre primary and the second one at class 1 — for admissions under the twenty five per cent quota under the Right To Education. A division bench of Justice Anoop Mohta and Justice Vijay Achliya upheld the 25 per cent quota and asked the state to set up an advisory council as per provisions of the RTE law.
The dispute was over the January 2015 rules that specified two levels of entry — one at the pre primary level and the other at Class One, in cases where the number of seats differed at these classes requiring fresh admissions in a school. For example a school which had 100 seats in pre primary classes had to reserve 25 per cent for students for economically weak and disadvantaged sections of the society under RTE. At Class one if the school had 200 seats, then it had to set apart an additional 25 seats to meet the RTE quota. The two levels of entry were not applicable in schools which had the same number of seats at both classes. Private schools had opposed this rule. The state and NGOs had said that the two levels of entry were necessary to ensure that the 25 per cent RTE quota was implemented at every class
[“source-timesofindia.indiatimes.com”]
