Petition at Madras High Court accuses T.N. of having turned a blind eye to schools for visually impaired

Madras HC issues notices to TN govt & State Commissionerate for Differently Abled on PIL alleging 10 special schools for visually impaired challenged children have many teaching posts vacant. Petitioner's counsel states 5 headmasters & 61 secondary grade teachers posts remain unfilled, violating RTE Act & Article 21A.

A public interest litigation (PIL) petition has been filed in the Madras High Court, accusing the Tamil Nadu government of having turned a blind eye to the 10 special schools being run by it for visually-impaired children. The litigant has complained of many teaching posts in these schools, lying vacant.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu on Tuesday, ordered notices, returnable by October 10, to the State government and the State Commissionerate for the Differently Abled on the PIL petition filed by Chennai-based advocate, P. Pugalenthi.

The petitioner’s counsel, M. Radhakrishnan told the court that the government runs special schools for the visually impaired in Thanjavur, Tiruchi, Poonamallee, Salem, Madurai, Pudukottai, Sivaganga, Coimbatore, Dharmapuri and Cuddalore. His client had visited a few of them. The government had sanctioned one post of principal for the school in Poonamallee and nine posts of headmaster for the rest of the schools. Of the 10 posts, five were vacant, the counsel said. The school in Poonamallee did not have a principal, while the schools in Thanjavur, Tiruchi, Dharmapuri and Cuddalore did not have headmasters.

Stating the situation with respect to other teachers was worse, the counsel said only five postgraduate teachers were serving in these schools as against the sanctioned strength of 14 teachers. Further, out of the sanctioned strength of 20 graduate teachers, only 10 were serving. “In other words, 50% of the posts remain unfilled. So far as the secondary grade teachers are concerned, it is shocking to note that of the sanctioned strength of 74 teachers, as many as 61 posts are vacant,” Mr. Radhakrishnan said and insisted on the Court’s issuing a direction to the government to fill all vacancies at the earliest.

The court was told that such a huge number of teaching posts remaining vacant would defeat the object of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act of 2009 and consequently, Article 21A (right to education) of the Constitution would become illusory for visually impaired children studying in the government special schools.