Fill vacant seats for poor students in summer vacations: Court

New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Friday directed the state government's education department to complete admission process for vacant seats for students from the economically weaker section (EWS) during the summer vacations to enable them to attend school after reopening in July 2012.

The court's order came after the government's status report informed the court that around 10,000 seats under EWS category are vacant in 1,186 unaided private schools in 2012-13 session.

The division bench of Acting Chief Justice A.K.Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw also directed the director of education to decide, within one month, on inclusion of orphan children in the definition of "child belonging to disadvantaged group" under RTE (Right to Education) Act, 2009.

"So that the orphan child also becomes eligible for admission under 25 percent EWS reservation," the court observed.

Disposing off the petition filed by an NGO, Social Jurist, the bench also ordered that the admission process will be conducted by the deputy director of education and not by the schools.

Appearing for Social Jurist, advocate Ashok Agarwal had argued that the city's unaided private schools failed to comply with the provisions of RTE Act relating to grant of admissions to the extent of 25 percent seats to the children belonging to EWS section.

Students belonging to disadvantaged groups and EWS, admitted in unaided private private schools under the RTE Act, are entitled, free of cost, to all facilities and provisions including books, uniform, smart classes etc. from the school which are made available to fee-paying students.