SC upholds constitutional validity of Right to Education Act

Posted on: 12 Apr 2012

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the various provisions of the Right to Education Act, 2009.The apex court ruled that the RTE Act would apply to all categories of public and private schools except unaided minority schools.

The SC judgement makes it clear that all schools will have to keep aside 25% of seats for poor children.

The SC said the judgement would come into effect from Thursday.The Supreme Court Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of the Right to Education (RTE) that mandates unaided private schools to earmark 25 percent seats for students from economically and socially weaker sections of society.

The apex court bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar upheld the constitutional validity of Section 12 1C of the right to education (RTE) act that provides 25 percent reservation for students from weaker sections of society.

However, Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, in a dissenting judgment, held that the mandate under RTE providing for reservation of seats was not constitutionally valid, thus none of the unaided schools, be it of majority or minority, could be compelled to earmark 25 percent seats in their institutions for weaker sections.

The court said the judgment will come into force from Thursday itself, but the admissions already made will not be disturbed.