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Quota for babus’ kids in Sanskriti School like segregation: HC

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New Delhi: Delhi High Court in a verdict of arbitrary separation on Friday, as it aided 60% quota in the prestigious Sanskriti School for children of group-A government officials, saying it was akin to the erstwhile segregation of white and black students in the US and violated constitutional provisions of equality and right to education.

Bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Mukta Gupta exclaimed that by providing such a reservation, the school created an “arbitrary separation” between the children of Group-A officers and all other students.

“The State cannot provide funds to any private individual to establish a school for an elite segment of the society” and directed the government to “remediate this violation, and ensure that the schools in question open its doors equally to all students,” the bench said.

“Sanskriti School has been promoted as a school primarily for the children of Group-A officers of the Union Government who join service through the Civil Services Examination.

This situation is analogous to the scenarios in Brown and Keyes cases (where the issues involved segregation of White and African-American student populations),” the court said.

“The school possesses no justifiable basis upon which to label group-A Union Government officers as a suspect class. No logical rationale distinguishes this class of persons from other individuals engaged in other branches of the Indian Services,” it said.

It said if the reservation in place to provide stable schooling environment for children of officers whose assignments “fluctuate” between different geographic locations in India, “the justification is moot”, as this predicament was being faced by all persons engaged in other branches of the Indian services.

The court said the school, funded by public funds, “has not narrowly tailored its means” because a 60% quota “creates a limited notion of diversity and merely separates group-A Union Government officers from an otherwise similar category of students”.

“Thus, a classification that includes merely the children of group-A Union Government officers bears no merit. In sum, the respondents’ separate treatment of aforesaid classification of children violates both the spirit of equal protection under Article 14 of India’s Constitution and the spirit of equality of education under Article 21A,” the bench said.

The court in its 31-page verdict said the opinion the court in its 31-page verdict said the opinion expressed by it was “not against the Union Government creating good and quality schools.

The opinion is against creating a good and a quality school with 60% quota reserved for an elite segment of the society.”

It also noted that the school charged nearly 40% less fees from the children of group-A officers of the Union Government vis-a-vis other children.

The bench said the government has “failed to show” that no alternative means were available by which it could have created “a balance between children of the aforesaid officers, children of persons in other branches of the Indian Services, and children of the general category”.

“In the instant case, respondents have failed to justify a quota restricted to children of Group-A officers of the Union of India who enter service through the Civil Services Examination,” it also said. It said if the kids of group-A officers could not be accommodated in the Kendriya Vidyalayas due to shortage of seats, “another Kendriya Vidyalaya could have been established on the land in question given free of cost to the Civil Services Society” which had set up the Sanskriti School.

The court noted in its verdict that the real reason for setting up the school was that the civil services officers, having transferable jobs found it difficult to admit their children in ‘good schools’ and ‘elite schools’. 60% seats in the school are reserved for children of Group-A officers, 25% for those from the economically weaker sections, 10% for wards of rest of the society and 5% for the staff of the school.

The court in its judgment observed that various expert commissions have said that the current school system in India and abroad promotes and maintains a wide chasm between the advantaged and disadvantaged.

“The privileged, who can afford to buy education, have access to the high-quality elite schools, while the poor and the marginalised are left to wallow in ill-equipped schools established by the municipalities, gram panchayats and Government,” the bench noted.

(With PTI inputs)

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