Right to Education does not include right to choose school: Delhi High Court

Delhi HC rules that the Right to Education does not grant children the right to choose their school.

A child's right to education does not encompass the right to select a particular school for it, the Delhi High Court has held.

A Bench of Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia said the Right to Education (RTE) Act was a beneficial legislation, enacted to achieve the objectives of social inclusion and ensuring that schools become a common space which was not differentiated by barriers of caste, ethnic group or caste lines.

"However, such a right to education cannot be translated into right to select a particular school," the Court ruled on March 25.

The Court's verdict came on a mother's appeal seeking to admit her ward in Class 2 under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category in a private school for the academic session 2024-2025.

The appellant had earlier approached a single-judge Bench of the High Court for admission of her ward under the EWS category in Class 1 of the private school for the 2023-2024 academic session.

In the appeal, the appellant assailed the single judge's order, which said that although the school lacked a legitimate basis for refusing admission to the appellant's ward, the conclusion of the relevant academic year precluded the Court from issuing an order for her ward's admission in the subsequent academic year, i.e. 2024-25.