11 Thane schools declared illegal, principals booked for violating RTI Act

These are among the 60 unauthorised schools across the city; remaining schools will be taken care of soon, an official said

Eleven schools in Diva and Mumbra were declared illegal on Thursday and the principals booked for running them for many years. Police said the education department of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) found the schools were illegal. Following this, an inquiry was conducted and on Thursday, a case was lodged with the Mumbra police station for cheating and other relevant sections of the IPC.

Eleven schools in Diva and Mumbra were declared illegal on Thursday and the principals booked for running them for many years. (HT FIle)

An officer from TMC’s education department said, “The eleven schools violated the norms of the Right to Information Act and were declared unauthorised by the district education officer. We had sent them several notices to close but they chose to ignore them. We had even published their names in the newspaper last year for parents to know. Finally when these schools did not bother to shut down, we approached the police.”

These are among the 60 unauthorised schools across the city. Remaining schools will soon be targeted too, said the officer.

TMC’s deputy municipal commissioner Sandeep Malvi confirmed that a case has been registered against the principal and secretaries of these 11 schools.

Deputy commissioner of police zone-1, D Swamy, said, “Notices have been sent to 11 schools out of which eight are from Diva and three are from Mumbra.”

Senior inspector of Mumbra police station, K Pasalkar, said, “A case of cheating has been registered and we are investigating the matter. We have sent notices but the schools have exams so it will be not possible to vacate the schools at once.”

A police source said, “We have sent notices to all the schools and we suspect that there will be more than 1,000 students in them. The time to transfer them to another school is limited. Also, the other school might have enough students and we doubt there will be seats available.”

Shakib Ansari, 34, a Mumbra resident, said, “If the schools are illegal, how come the corporation woke up after so many years? They should not have allowed the school to be built in the initial stage. We cannot shift our children immediately. Also, the schools were nearby and our children would go walking. Now I doubt that our children will get admission in other nearby schools.”