Delhi high court rap for MCD on lack of facilities for civic school students

The court was of the view that the agency’s senior officers were neither willing to monitor the provision of study material

The Delhi high court on Tuesday expressed dismay at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD’s) failure to provide uniforms, notebooks and stationery to around 200,000 students who do not have bank accounts, saying it “did not represent a happy situation” and would lead to children losing interest.

The court made the comments on a plea filed by NGO Social Jurist seeking directions to the education department and MCD to ensure that students in their schools had an operational bank account. (Representational image)

The court was of the view that the agency’s senior officers were neither willing to monitor the provision of study material by visiting schools or act against errant officers who showed negligence in publishing books for the new academic session.

“None of the senior officers are willing to visit any of the schools. You don’t want to take action against your officers, good luck to you. The rest is up to you. We don’t run your administration. It’s not a scorecard to be proud of and it doesn’t cover MCD with a happy glory. It’s not a happy situation,” a bench of acting chief justice Manmohan and justice Manmeet PS Arora said to MCD commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, who was virtually present.

“(Children) are promoted to new classes. Students have been going and not studying. They will lose interest. This will have a very harmful effects on students. Going to new class without any books and uniforms,” the bench said.

The bench also frowned on the Delhi government’s failure to form a standing committee to award contracts of more than ₹5 crore for distributing necessary material to schools, saying that there could not be a vacuum, and directed the latter to delegate the financial power to an appropriate authority within two weeks.

The court made the comments on a plea filed by NGO Social Jurist seeking directions to the education department and MCD to ensure that students in their schools had an operational bank account. The plea filed through advocate Ashok Agarwal also sought for payment of statutory benefits to all students through bearer cheques till accounts are opened.

On Tuesday, advocate Ashok Agarwal submitted that approximately 700,000 students in MCD-run schools were sitting idle due to non-provision of study material.

The MCD commissioner submitted that the study material was not distributed to approximately 200,000 students since they did not have bank accounts, and that efforts to open the same were underway on war footing. He said that the process of supplying textbooks was going on and would soon be completed.

Delhi government’s standing counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi submitted that as far as the schools run by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were concerned, only 73,000 of 1.7 million students were not getting monetary benefits due to a lack of bank accounts.

The same bench, hearing another plea which stated that Delhi government schools were following a teaching mechanism of two hours on alternate days, also directed the Delhi government to ensure provision of adequate drinking water and washrooms in schools. “We want tin schools to be replaced. Please ensure that they get drinking water in the school and toilets are functional. The textbooks are having an impact on the MCD schools,” the bench said to Delhi government’s education department secretary, who was physically present.