HC seeks Delhi govt stand on PIL concerning vacancies, infra deficiencies in schools

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday sought a response from the Delhi government on public interest litigation highlighting deficiencies in infrastructure in its schools here and seeking directions to fill the vacant posts of principals, teachers, and other staff.

A bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi issued notice on the petition by Shri Salek Chand Jain and directed the city government to file an affidavit disclosing the current state of existing vacancies as well as the steps taken by it to address them and the timeline within which the same would be filled. The bench, also comprising Justice Sachin Datta, further asked the government to disclose the deficiency in infrastructure in its schools and how it proposed to deal with the same.

The petitioner alleged that “45503 posts of teachers are lying vacant in 1027 government schools in Delhi run by the Delhi government” and several of them do not have well-equipped computer labs, science labs, libraries, etc. The petition, filed through lawyer JK Gupta, argued that due to the lack of faculty, its students cannot get a quality education or compete with the other students and the Delhi government has done nothing to provide any state-of-the-art infrastructure in its schools.

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The petition emphasised that most students in the government schools belong to the lower middle class and poor families which cannot afford the private tuition and “due to the shortage of the teaching staff, the respondents (Delhi government) are playing with the lives and prosperity and future of the poor students.” “It is a great mockery that on the one side, there is a huge shortage of the teaching staff as mentioned above and on the other hand, Delhi Govt. has been putting the education model in United Nation,” the petition said.

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“Without the teachers, the students in the govt. schools are deprived of their fundamental rights of education, hence the present petition has been filed under Article 226 of Constitution of India,” it added. The petition also stated that most of the schools do not have CCTV cameras and guards at the main gate due to which certain “unwanted and anti-social elements may come into the school and cause a nuisance”. The matter would be heard next on November 9.