OPEN
LETTER TO SHRI SHANTI BHUSHAN
Respected
Shanti Bhushan ji,
We wish to bring to your
notice a peculiar situation which has arisen in Lucknow. We know that you've
been a lawyer for the Founder Manager Jagdish Gandhi of City Montessori School in
Lucknow for over three decades and realise that as a lawyer your ethical
commitment is to defend your client.
The Basic Shiksha
Adhikari of Lucknow has ordered admission of 31 children, including 23 SC and 8
Muslims, 6 of whom belong to OBC category, to CMS under Section 12 of the Right
to Education Act, 2009. However, Shri Jagdish Gandhi and his daughter Geeta
Gandhi Kingdon, President of CMS, have refused to admit these children from
disadvantaged groups and weaker sections to the Indira Nagar branch of their
school. Jagdish Gandhi went to the High Court claiming that they don't have
physical space in their school and questioned why the BSA ordered admission to
their school when there were other government and private schools closer to the
homes of the children. On High Court's order BSA visited the school and found
that there is enough space in the school and the court has taken a view that
even if other schools are there the parents have a right to seek admission to a
school of their choice according to the law. The court ordered the BSA to find
out how many children lived in the neighbourhood of the school, as required by
the law. Upon measuring the distances from their homes it turned out that 14
out of 31 children lived within a km of the school, which is the definition of
neighbourhood as prescribed by U.P. government rules. The HC ordered admission
of these 14 children to CMS on 6th August, 2015. Socialist Party (India) is
involved with this struggle to get children admitted to school under RTE.
Your appearance for a
truant school in the HC (first on hearing on 30 July and then on first hearing
of appeal against the court order directing CMS to admit 14 children within a
week on 12 August, 2015) not only emboldens a person bent upon violating a
national law and who holds court order in contempt but also weakens our fight
for social justice. The RTE Act, for the first time in this country since
economic policies of privatization, liberalization and globalization have been
implemented is an attempt to bridge the ever widening gap between the children
of rich and poor and gives a chance to government to regulate the private schools
to ensure compliance of various laws and norms. The outlaw school's founder
manager and president and a weak government have colluded to deny children from
socio-economic weaker background their legal right and an opportunity to
transform their lives by receiving education available to only the elite in the
country. Your appearance in HC is unfortunately strengthening the forces which
have made quality education for underprivileged children a distant dream in
this country and are preventing the implementation of long standing demand of
common school system.
We cannot request a
person of your stature not to help your client but can only make an appeal to
you to think of the larger cause of universalization of primary education which
is at stake and then take a decision based on your conscience.
Sandeep
Pandey, Socialist Party (India), ashaashram@yahoo.com
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