Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on March 9 asked explanation from the Delhi Government for remaining inactive in education sector for years and hence violating children’s fundamental right to education. Many government schools in Delhi do not have adequate teaching staff and till date no action had been taken by the Delhi government.

That education system in the country is afflicted with myriad ailments is known to everybody. Crass commercialization of education brought in its wake many undesirable elements in the system. The market axiom: ‘the one, who pays the piper, calls the tune’ best sums up the prevailing education scene. That people with resources would exploit the situation taking advantage of the new changed atmosphere was a foregone conclusion. Yet the government with no means to meet the educational requirement of the country had taken a calculated risk by going for the privatisation of education. 

The Supreme Court has come to the rescue of the nearly 2 lakh students of 44 deemed universities whose de-recognition was sought by the Central Government a week back.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has withdrawn the ‘deemed university’ tag from 44 such universities, and urged the Supreme Court of India to de-recognize them.  Out of the 44 of these ‘doomed’ universities, 41 of them have several institutions under them and have a combined undergraduate and postgraduate regular student enrolment of 1,19,363, over 2000 doing PhD and MPhil, plus nearly 75,000 students pursuing distant education from

Hitting hard on forty-four ‘doomed’ universities, the Centre has recommended the Supreme Court to de-recognize these erring universities for offering both post-graduate and undergraduate courses, which according to it, are ‘fragmented with concocted nomenclatures’.

Making its stand clear on the issue, the Centre also noted that these errant institutes have been increasing seats ‘disproportionately’ much beyond their actual intake capacity.

With the constant and mounting pressure over the issue of bringing the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) into effect, the centre has promised to bring the Act into effect very soon. This happened after the Supreme Court expressed anguish over the Centre’s lack of interest shown in this matter.
 

The state government of Karnataka is using the Right to Education Act, 2009 to bolster the case of Kannada as the compulsory medium of instruction in schools from class one to five. The state government is involved in a legal battle in the Supreme Court over the issue of language policy case.   

Passing stinging stricture on all those institutions which do not value their commitments once they achieve their goal, the Karnataka High Court has reprimanded the deemed universities for not abiding by University Grants Commission (UGC) norms in admissions. The high court held that UGC guidelines, which have a statutory force, binding on all the institutions that enjoy the deemed to be university status.

In a new decision on the case that has been going on for quite some time, the Supreme Court has ordered Nirmala Convent High School in Madhya Pradesh, to finally  reinstate its class Xth student Mohd. Salim; whom the school had expelled on the grounds of keeping an unshaven beard.
 

The rising incidents of ragging have made Supreme Court worried. It asked the senior students today not to behave in a 'barbaric manner' and asked them to be like elder brothers to freshers.

A Bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and AK Ganguly said,

"The seniors should not behave in a barabaric manner. They should be like elder brothers to freshers. The freshers should not be scared.”