Why can't Tamil Nadu government fulfil RTE obligation without waiting for central funds under Samagra Shiksha Scheme, asks Madras High Court
A Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and V. Lakshminarayanan said, the reluctance on the part of the State government in fulfilling the financial obligation, without depending upon the Centre, would only give an impression as if the State was not interested in educating poor children under the RTE Act.
The observations were made during the hearing of a contempt of court petition filed against School Education secretary B. Chandra Mohan and Director of Private Schools P. Kuppusamy for having failed to implement an order passed by the Division Bench in a public interest litigation petition on June 10, 2025.
Special Government Pleader U.M. Ravichandran said the State government had preferred an appeal before the Supreme Court on Thursday (August 7, 2025) against the orders passed in the PIL petition. After recording his submissions, the Bench adjourned the hearing on the contempt plea to August 14, 2025.
The PIL petition had sought a direction to the State government to commence the RTE admissions for the academic year 2025-26 without any delay and feared that the delay in reimbursing the fees to the private unaided schools for the previous academic years might affect the admissions this year.
Disposing of the plea on June 10, the Division Bench had taken note that there was a tussle between the Centre and the State government due to the latter's reluctance to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and it had led to complaints of the Centre withholding the funds due to the State.
Then, the Bench also found that the State government had already approached the Supreme Court complaining about the Centre not having released Samagra Shiksha Scheme (SSS) funds to the tune of ₹2,151.59 crore which included the Centre's share towards the RTE component.
After directing the Centre to consider delinking the RTE component, from the SSS funds, the Bench also issued a direction to the State government to reimburse the private unaided schools, which make admissions under the RTE Act, without waiting for the disbursement of central funds.
'The State government has an obligation to reimburse private unaided schools. Non-receipt of funds from the Union Government cannot be cited as a reason to wriggle out of this statutory obligation,' the court had observed while disposing of the PIL petition. It was alleging wilful disobedience of this order that the present contempt of court petition had been filed.
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