Can’t admit boy under RTE, ‘minority’ IB school tells Bombay HC – Times of India

MUMBAI: Refusing to admit an autistic child, an IB school at Grant Road told the Bombay high court that it is a minority, unaided educational institution and hence exempt from the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009.
Edubridge International School, run by Chankya Gyan Kendra trust, replied to HC’s July 9 direction “to make a statement whether it is agreeable to grant admission” to the boy as directed by the deputy director of education and education inspector (south).
The petitioner, Gamdevi resident Ashish Patel, said in April 2019, his son was allotted Edubridge International School in an online RTE admission process. When he approached the school with the allotment letter, the admission was rejected without specifying any reason. The Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, in October 2019, directed the deputy director of education and education inspector (south) to take necessary action in the matter, but there was no response. Thereafter, due to the pandemic, Patel could not take the matter further and his son remained without admission. Patel urged the HC for directions to admit his son—now aged 7—to class I for the 2021-22 academic year.
In its reply, the school said it has been a minority institution since inception although its minority status was certified by the state in February 2020. It referred to the Supreme Court’s two judgments that RTE provisions do not apply to minority institutions as they violate Article 30 (Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions) and the Act must yield to rights of minorities as protected by the Constitution.
On July 22, before a bench of Justices Ramesh Dhanuka and Riyaz Chagla, the school’s advocate Pradeep Bakhru said as it is exempt from provisions of the RTE Act “therefore the directions (to admit) do not apply to us”. Patel’s advocates, C R Sadasivan and Anup Dhannawat, countered that in 2019, the school was not a minority institution and its name was on the state’s RTE portal.