RTE ADMISSION ‒ 2nd round of admissions on hold: Gujarat High Court

The state government, in an affidavit filed before the division bench of the Gujarat High Court, said that it had put the second round of admissions under the Right To Education (RTE) Act on hold.

The affidavit said that the second round was on hold because 178 schools had approached the Gujarat High Court stating that they were minority institutions and hence should be exempted from the RTE act.

The government said that 9,843 schools in the state had around 1,12,265 seats available under RTE. Of this, 80,165 seats were already allotted to various students under the Act and 72,294 students had already confirmed their admission.

The affidavits said now 32,100 seats were remaining to be filled. It said some seats remained vacant because the students were overqualified or in some cases, the seats in a particular school had no applicants. It also said that since some of the schools had moved the high court stating that they were excluded from the RTE, the second round was on hold until the court gave its verdict in the matter.

The affidavit also stated that the petitioner's prayer regarding reconsideration of 3,170 applications that had been rejected on the grounds of typo errors and the inability to submit documents, be dismissed. "The 3,170 applications that were rejected were given ample time to provide necessary documents like income certificate, caste certificate, BPL cards, etc. In fact, the time limit was even extended," the affidavit states.

It added that if such applications were to be considered now, it would soon become a never-ending process.