HC pulls up Delhi government on 5-year-old differently-abled student’s plea

The boy, who is 100% hearing impaired, was selected in a draw of lots at Hazari Lal Public School, Khera Khurd. However, the authorities told his parents that the school was not equipped to cater to the boy’s special needs.

The Delhi High Court on Monday pulled up the Delhi government for not responding on time to a plea by a five-year-old differently abled boy, who had to forfeit his admission in a private school due to lack of required facilities.

A division bench headed by the chief justice of Delhi HC has directed the education secretary to file the response before February 5 on the plea of a differently-abled child who had to forfeit his admission in a private school due to lack of required facilities.(File Photo)

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and justice V Kameshwar Rao directed the education secretary to file the response before February 5. The Delhi government had to submit its response by January 10.

The boy, who is 100% hearing impaired, was selected in a draw of lots at Hazari Lal Public School, Khera Khurd. However, the authorities told his parents — the mother is a domestic help and the father a labourer — that the school was not equipped to cater to the boy’s special needs. Also, the child was allowed admission in kindergarten instead of nursery due to the upper-age limit.

The plea also challenged the online admissions under EWS/DG category, citing that the process was non-transparent and created more hassles for the marginalised groups. “Online EWS admission takes away the choice of students to be selected in more than one school. In this case, the child could not get selected anywhere else since he had to forfeit his admission due to lack of facilities,” said Khagesh Jha, the petitioner’s counsel.

A spokesperson for Hazari Lal Public School said though they have a special educator, there are no facilities for children with hearing impairment. “This is directorate of education’s fault. They should at least see that the school allotted to the disabled students should have the required facilities.”

Directorate officials were not available for a comment.

Meanwhile, another petition related to the same case, challenged the defective drafting of provisions of Section 3 of RTE Act 2009 and also Rule 8(1) of Delhi RTE Rules, which does not include providing hearing aids to disabled children or transport and escort facilities to the private schools.