The country's apex human rights panel on Wednesday issued notice to Tamil Nadu, seeking reports in four weeks over the Scheduled Castes children being denied admission in a government school in Madurai district. "The Dalit children were barred...from admission to the government middle school in the village by the dominant Hindu caste and they are forced to study at a missionary-run government-aided school on the border of the Kalligudi village," said a National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) official.

The commission has taken cognizance of the issue on the basis of a media report forwarded by a complainant.

The media report quoted some school officials as saying that since early 1990s, they could not recall even a single Dalit student ever studying in the institution.