Congress Calls for Quota in Pvt Schools under Article 15(5)

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Poor Forced out of Public Schools: Sonia Gandhi

By TRH News Desk

New Delhi, March 31: The Congress on Monday reiterated its demand for reservation in private schools. The demand followed an article by Congress parliamentary chairperson Sonia Gandhi in which she claimed that the “poor in the last decade has been forced out of the public schools”.

“The Constitution (Ninety-third Amendment) Act, 2005 took effect from January 20, 2006. For the past eleven years, therefore, Article 15(5) has stood validated by the Supreme Court,” said Jairam Ramesh, the Congress communication department chief in a media statement.

His statement came after Gandhi’s article was published in The Hindu. In the article, Gandhi wrote: “Since 2014, we have seen close of 89441 public schools across the country.” She argued that the government schools have been shut down in the name of the consolidation.

“A total of 42994 private schools have been opened,” said Gandhi, arguing that they almost mushroomed due to the closure of the public (government) schools.

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She also stated that “the country’s poor have been forced out of the public education, and into the prohibitively expensive private schools and unregulated education system”.

Ramesh in his statement said that the Congress “in its 2024 Lok Sabha election ‘Nyay Patra’, had committed itself to bringing legislation to implement Article 15(5) of the Constitution of India in private educational institutions”.

He also stated that “in its 364th Report on the Demand for Grants for the Department of Higher Education, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth, and Sports also recommended a new legislation to implement Article 15(5) as well”.

Article 15(5) mandates reservation for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and the other backward castes in private schools irrespective of the fact if they get the government aide or not. “The Indian National Congress reiterates this demand,” added Ramesh.

The amendment empowers the government to take affirmative actions for the disadvantaged group by giving immunity from sub-clause (g) of clause (1) of Article 19. The minority educational institutions referred to in clause (1) of Article 30 are exempted from the purview of Article 15(5).

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Reservations for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and socially and educationally backward classes of citizens in central educational institutions were introduced with effect from January 3, 2007. “Ashoka Kumar Thakur v Union of India April 10, 2008. By 2-0 margin Article 15(5) was held Constitutionally valid only for state-run and state-aided institutions,” said Ramesh.

He stated that “reservations in private unaided institutions were left open to be decided in the appropriate course”. “IMA v Union of India May 12, 2011. By 2-0 margin, Article 15 (5) was upheld for private unaided non-minority educational institutions,” stated Ramesh.

He further quoted the ‘Pramati Educational and Cultural Trust v Union of India’ judgment on January 29, 2014 which by 5-0 margin upheld Article 15(5) “for the first time for reservations for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and socially and educationally backward classes of citizens in private educational institutions”.

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