HC orders state to withdraw permission to 1,495 schools

MUMBAI: The Vilasrao Deshmukh government suffered a major embarrassment on Friday when a division bench of the High Court in Nagpur asked state education minister Vasant Purke to withdraw permission to 1,495 schools, which he had approved on May 15 in contravention of government guidelines on certain minimum infrastructure for the schools.Mr Purke withdrew the permission immediately after the HC ruling. The HC said the government is free to set up new schools within six months, but only if it meets the guidelines.

The division bench comprising Justice Dilip Sinha and Justice RC Chavan held that all 1,495 schools granted permission by the minister were set up in violation of the government guidelines. Some of these schools were being run by an educational institute associated with Mr Purke.

The court was responding to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the Amravati-based Maharashtra Rajya Shikshan Mahamandal. The PIL had challenged the permission to the schools on the grounds that the minister hurriedly sanctioned them disregarding all guidelines for setting up new schools. The HC had issued a notice to the minister on June 15.

The BJP, not one to miss out on an opportunity to score a political point over the issue, demanded Mr Pukre’s immediate resignation ‘for causing the state a huge embarrassment’. State BJP chief Nitin Gadkari said in a press release that it’s a shame for the government that the HC had rejected permission to all the new schools the minister had sanctioned.

This is a second blow to the state Cabinet in the past two months. In June, the Supreme Court had sentenced transport minister Surupsinh Naik to a one-month imprisonment along with the former additional chief secretary Ashok Khot, for granting permission to illegal saw mills as forest minister and forest secretary respectively. Mr Naik, however, spent more than a fortnight of his jail term in a hospital. Mr Khot, however, underwent the entire term.