Daijiworld Media Network – Bangalore (NR)

BANGALORE, Jun 26: The Karnataka High Court’s division bench headed by Chief Justice Cyriac Joseph upheld the state government's order on medium of instruction on Monday, June 25. This is seen as a major jolt for the 2,000-odd erring school managements.

Chief Justice Joseph gave schools one week's notice uptil July 2. They had to either accept the voluntary scheme or file affidavits indicating that they would admit students for the academic year 2007-08 for class one in kannada or the mother tongue for which they had obtained recognition.

The Karnataka Unaided Schools Managements Association (KUSMA) and others had filed a batch of appeals before the court. The division bench while disposing of the case said the payment of administrative charges would be dealt with by a single Bench at the final hearing and they need not pay at the moment or the government need not insist on the payment.

Earlier the government had asked these schools to pay a penalty of Rs 1 lac for schools in urban areas and Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 in semi-urban and rural areas respectively. However, the government had given permission to these schools to continue teaching in English for class two to class five as per the voluntary scheme.

According to the division bench, prima facie the action of the government to withdraw recognition to schools on account of violating norms of recognition cannot be termed as illegal or arbitrary. It however, left the decision on this issue to the single Bench at the final hearing, to consider all these aspects.

Taking up for the state government the court further stated: "It is obvious that in spite of the blatant violation of conditions by private school managements, the government still took a sympathetic view of the plight of 3 lac-odd students and 12,000-odd teachers and came forward to introduce the voluntary scheme as a one-time measure. Since the scheme is voluntary in nature, it is open to the appellants either to opt or reject it”.

"There is no compulsion. There is no justification in contesting the scheme. Merely because a school or some schools do not want to opt for the scheme, other schools who want to opt need not be denied the opportunity,'' the Bench observed.

The court further noted that 1994 language policy had nothing to do with these litigations, as issues raised here were completely different.