The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) parliamentarian Sanjay Singh’s petition challenging the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to close down 105 primary schools, observing that the matter ought to be raised before the Allahabad high court in the first instance.
A bench of justices Dipankar Datta and AG Masih said that since Singh was seeking enforcement of rights under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act), the proper course would be to approach the jurisdictional high court under Article 226 of the Constitution rather than invoking the Supreme Court’s powers directly under Article 32.
Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Singh, argued: “These children can no longer go to the school. And most of them are poor.” The bench asked: “Are you not trying to enforce rights under the Right to Education Act? You cannot then camouflage this as an Article 32 petition [for enforcement of fundamental rights]. It is a local problem. It is a problem of UP [Uttar Pradesh], and it has not spilled over to some other states. Let the high court deal with the matter.”
Sibal responded that the high court had already dismissed one such petition. Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, representing Uttar Pradesh, informed the bench that “there is an intra-court appeal pending against this order in the Allahabad high court.”
Reiterating its stance, the bench said: “If it is a statutory right, then it cannot be camouflaged as a writ petition under Article 32. There is a three-judge bench decision on this.”
Following the exchange, Sibal sought permission to withdraw the plea, with liberty to approach the high court. He requested that the high court be asked to hear the matter expeditiously, given that the issue involved the education of thousands of children.
The bench allowed the withdrawal and granted liberty to move the high court with such a request.
Singh’s petition challenged the Uttar Pradesh government’s June 16 order directing that primary schools with zero or low enrolment be “paired” with other nearby schools. A subsequent list issued by the Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Lucknow, on June 24 identified 105 schools for pairing, effectively rendering them non-operational or merged with distant institutions.
Filed through advocate Sriram Parakkat, the plea contended that this compelled children to travel longer distances, often without transport assistance, infrastructure, or prior notice, thereby violating their fundamental right to free and compulsory education under Article 21A, as enforced by the RTE Act and the Uttar Pradesh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2011.
The Uttar Pradesh government has defended the move as part of policy restructuring and alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, arguing that sustaining schools with negligible student strength was inefficient. Singh said that once established, schools cannot be closed or merged through executive instructions without legislative authority, and warned that the closures would hit children from marginalised backgrounds the hardest.
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