Sanskriti School, New Delhi
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Can school for bureaucrats’ children be public-funded?
The Times of India, Oct 30 2015
Abhinav Garg
Sanskriti School case: Nine years on, HC reserves order
Can the state divert free land and public money to an individual or a society to establish a school reserved for children of elite government servants? The fate of Delhi's reputed Sanskriti School will now be tested on this legal premise. The Delhi high court reserved its verdict on a case it started suo motu and converted into a PIL in 2006.
Surprisingly ,even though the issue was taken up suo motu, it took over nine years for the HC to reach the stage of wrapping up proceedings to pave the way for a verdict on the school, set up by wives of top bureaucrats.
A bench of Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Mukta Gupta conducted a marathon hearing of two hours to conclude the matter on the very first day of its listing before them. The bench indicated the broad contours its impending verdict will deal with -legality of state funding for land and building construction of Sanskriti School and concession up to 40% in fee charged from children of group A officers. HC is also likely to decide if a quota of 60% seats for group A officers is valid or not.
The thrust of the court's inquiry has been to examine why the government is routing large public resources to a school not accessible to children belonging to the weaker sections of the society. Rejecting the arguments that the grant of Rs 10 crore is towards capital expenses, the court had on an earlier occasion asserted that government resources should be made available firstly to the weaker sections of society .
In the last effective hearing held two years ago, then Chief Justice NV Ramana had questioned why departments and ministries were vying with each other to fund the school. HC has already examined the school's management and pattern of admission and the verdict is expected to have a bearing on both.
On its part, the school has fielded a battery of lawyers including Union minister Arun Jaitley who had challenged the court's powers to examine a budgetary provision by Parliament. The institute has maintained that only 60% of seats are for the children of group A officers, while 10% for general public, 5% for staff and 25% for EWS category .
