Delhi High Court: On 21st December, 2020, the Government of NCT of Delhi submitted in Court that elections of the School Management Committee (SMC) will be held within 2 months of school reopening. On 1st July, the Delhi Government had issued a circular by which SMCs were to be reconstituted through a draw of lots instead of elections right in the middle of the pandemic which was challenged by the petitioners as being opposed to the Right To Education Act. After the first hearing of this case, the Government issued a new circular (dated 16.07.20) adding information regarding tenure of SMCs constituted by the draw of lots method. This information was missing from the impugned circular dated 01.07.20. The new circular added that the SMCs constituted by the draw of lots method was only a ‘stop gap’ arrangement and elections to reconstitute SMCs would be held ‘after normalcy returns’. However, what ‘normalcy’ meant remained ambiguous.
Ms. Garima Sharma, the counsel appearing for the petitioners, pressed that the respondents commit to reconstitute the SMCs via elections within a fixed timeframe after school reopening. After seeking instructions from the Department of Education, the Government of NCT of Delhi, represented by Advocate Gautma Narayan, submitted that they will conduct elections to reconstitute SMCs within 2 months of school reopening. The same has been recorded in the order. The petitioners were satisfied with the submission made. The bench of Navin Chawla, J. binding the respondents to the statement made disposed of the petition.
This comes as a big relief to the petitioners who feared that the constitution of SMCs, by an opaque, exclusionary method such as draw of lots, if went unchallenged could become the norm and could take away the opportunity for parents to participate in choosing who will represent them in SMCs. SMCs are an important platform for parents to effect change inside a government school as they constitute 75% of the committee and SMCs have significant oversight and administrative roles and responsibilities.
[Indra v. Government of NCT of Delhi, Writ Petition (C) No. 4076 of 2020, dated 21-12-2020]
Click to access Note-On-The-Gaps-In-Current-SMC-Constitution-Ciricular_1-1.pdf
Nilufer Bhateja, Associate Editor has put this story together
Also read: Delhi HC| Reconstitution of Delhi School Management Committees postponed till next hearing
