Panel to inspect tented Delhi corporation schools

NEW DELHI - Delhi High Court Wednesday set up a three-member committee of lawyers to inspect the 56 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools where students are being taught under tents.

The committee comprising S.K. Dubey, Najmi Waziri and Ashok Aggrawal has been asked to submit its report within four weeks.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Manmohan also asked the committee to see whether the teachers are regularly attending the schools. The bench directed the MCD officials to provide full co-operation to the members failing which strict action would be taken against them.

“The present petition projects a shocking picture. It is asserted in the petition that students who are pursuing their studies at the primary level are not taught in classrooms but in tents in the capital of India,” observed Chief Justice Misra after the MCD submitted that construction work in 56 schools is still going on and it would take another one and a half years to complete it.

“The question that emerges for consideration is whether the students should be imparted education at such a tender age under tents, which not even remotely resemble the classroom,” said the Chief Justice while directing the MCD to provide a proper classroom atmosphere to the students in tents.

“It is a matter of great wonder how these students are taught in tents in the scorching heat of summer, during the menace of rains and the chill of winters,” the Chief Justice remarked.

Nearly 140 postcards were sent to the chief justice in July by school children, describing the abysmal condition of government and MCD-run schools in the capital.

Appearing for the students, counsel Ashok Aggarwal told the bench that despite several orders being passed by the chief justice’s bench to improve the conditions of primary schools run by the MCD or state government, a sizeable number of schools are still run from tents, forcing students to bear the brunt of the heat in the summer.

Alleging that in its rush to deck up the city for the Commonwealth Games, the authorities have forgotten the fate of almost 25 lakh students enrolled in these schools, Aggarwal sought decisive intervention of the court.

Aggarwal wondered how the authorities can abide by the mandate of the Right to Education Act of providing “quality and conducive” education to students when the latter have to sit in overcrowded tents with no basic facilities.