Delhi Government Not Maintaining Basic Requirement In Own Schools: High Court

New Delhi: Delhi High Court today said the AAP government was "not maintaining" basic infrastructure and adequate staff for its own schools but was acting against the private ones for not complying with these requirements.

Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva said it showed that the Delhi government was itself not complying with the basic requirements and guidelines framed by it for schools in the national capital.

The court issued notice to Delhi government and directed it to place on affidavit "statistics with regard to the total number of government schools in Delhi with the total number of students in each school and the infrastructure inter-alia, furniture, desks, etc available in the said schools".

"The respondent (government) shall also place on record the infrastructure and teaching staff available in the government schools and steps being taken by the government in removing the various deficiencies," the court said and listed the matter for further hearing on December 15.

The observations and order came after the court was told that a senior secondary school run by Delhi government at Bhati Mines area here only had a temporary roof and lacked even furniture.

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"Certain photographs have been placed on record which show that the classrooms are not of a permanent structure but are of temporary pre-fabricated material with the tin roof.

From the photographs, it appears that there is not enough furniture also available for the students to sit and study in the classroom," the court noted in its order.

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The petitioner, studying in the school at Bhati Mines, has said that there were only 28 pre-fabricated classrooms with tin roofs against 41 sections of students and due to non-availability of adequate classrooms, classes IX-XII are held in the morning session from 7am to 12.30pm and classes VI-VIII are held in the afternoon from 1.30pm to 6.30pm. 

In the petition, filed through advocate Ashok Aggarwal, it was also contended that against the sanctioned strength of 70 teachers, including the Principal, only 27 teachers have been posted in the school and there are 33 guest teachers, including one computer teacher.