On Monday, the Delhi High Court affirmed that schools carrying forward unfilled seats under the economically weaker section (EWS) or disadvantaged group (DG) categories to the next class in the subsequent year do not violate the Right To Education (RTE) Act or any other legal provision. The high court emphasized that admitting EWS/DG students to a minimum of 25% of the entry-level class strength is a statutory obligation for every school falling within Section 2(n)(iv) of the RTE Act.

Justice C Hari Shankar, in a comprehensive 40-page judgment, stated that the principle of carrying forward unfilled EWS/DG category vacancies from one class to the next year in the same school is legal and valid, as previously held by the division bench. This ruling came while addressing a plea from the mother of a 5-year-old girl denied admission under the EWS/DG category by a private school for three consecutive academic sessions.

In an interim decision in September, the court directed the school to provisionally admit the child in Class I for the 2023-2024 academic session as an EWS student, pending the petition’s final outcome. The court ruled that the girl should continue studying as an EWS student in Class I until the end of the present academic year, considering the disruption mid-session would cause.

The court instructed the Directorate of Education (DoE) to ensure the girl’s admission to Class II in a neighborhood school in 2024-2025 as an EWS/DG candidate. The DoE was further directed to ensure her continued education in the said school until the age of 14, bearing the fees in accordance with the RTE Act.

Justice Shankar emphasized securing the interests of the innocent child, highlighting the regrettable frequency of conflicts between schools and the DoE regarding EWS student admissions. The school presented a tabular statement demonstrating consistent EWS/DG admissions from 2015-2016 to 2022-2023, meeting the 25% general category admissions requirement each year, as mandated by the Right to Education Act.