Supreme Court Dismisses State's Challenge Against Allahabad HC’s Order Extending Grant-In-Aid To Category 'A' Level School

A bench of Justice B.R. Gavai, Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha, and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra heard the matter.

The Bench observed, "We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court. The special leave petition is, accordingly, dismissed."

Senior Advocate Rana Mukherjee appeared for the petitioner, and Advocate P.S. Bajpai appeared for the respondents.

In the pertinent matter, the petitioners (the Managing Committee) requested inclusion of their institution, Upamanyu Vidyalay Junior High School in the list of institutions receiving grant-in-aid from the State of U.P. in terms of the provisions under U.P. Junior High School (Payment of Salaries of Teachers and other Employees) Act, 1978.

The school was granted temporary recognition w.e.f. July, 1977 and permanent recognition on August 3, 1984. It came under Category 'A' level Vidyalaya, and a certificate to that effect was also issued to the petitioner.

However, pursuant to the Government Order dated September 7, 2006, when the petitioners submitted their application, the same was rejected while citing certain defects.

The alleged defect was that institution did not have the requisite area and was stated that the area in occupation of the institution was 0.11 hectare which was much less than the prescribed limit. The petitioners, however, immediately moved an application stating that the area in occupation of is more than the prescribed area and the ownership documents of two Bighas land which was being used by the institution for playground were also annexed.

The other ground on which the State denied grant subsequently, was that there were already three schools in existence in the area and the State Government had to maintain the said three schools in terms of the mandate cast upon the State under Section 6 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, therefore the petitioner’s claim could not be considered.

It was further alleged by the petitioners that despite fulfilling all the conditions as prescribed under the Government Order, the case of the petitioner was rejected on three occasions. On all the three occasions, the ground for denying the benefit was different.

The Single Judge thus in the order noted that the respondent-institution has been running prior to the three institutions being run in the vicinity and the grounds upon which the earlier applications of the petitioner were rejected were "frivolous" and the same could not be sustained.

While affirming the order of the Single Judge Bench dated September 5, 2022, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Pritinker Diwaker, Justice Jaspreet Singh, observed, “Once it is noticed that the respondent-institution complied with the requisite condition and similarly situated institutions have already been granted the benefit, consequently, it cannot be said that the learned Single Judge has overstepped its jurisdiction or passed an order against the provisions of law to persuade this Court to interfere. The reasoning given by the learned Single Judge does not suffer from any error and consequently this Court is not inclined to interfere”.

Cause Title: State of U.P. & Anr. v. Committee of Management, Upamanyu Purva Madhyamik Vidyalaya & Anr.