NANDA SHAJI Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who is a young girl of 17 years, has approached this Court seeking that she be allowed to continue and complete her 12th standard in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kottarakara. According to her, she had secured admission in this school as a ward of her father, who was a teacher there; but that since he has now been transferred to Guntur, as is evidenced from Ext.P2, she has been asked to discontinue her studies in the fourth respondent school and to join the Navodaya school at Guntur. She says that on account of ongoing Covid - 19 pandemic scenario, her displacement at this stage in this fashion would destroy her future irreparably. She thus prays that respondents 2 to 4 be directed to allow her to complete her 12th standard in fourth respondent school as a special case.

(2.) Sri.M.K.Padmanabhan Nair, learned standing counsel appearing on behalf of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya submits that, as per the norms applicable to the school and to the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samithi, the ward of a teacher will have to move along with his or her father/mother and therefore, that the petitioner's continuance in the fourth respondent school is legally untenable. He says that the petitioner's father had been transferred validly but that he had contested the same before the Central Administrative Tribunal by launching at least three litigations but that he has lost all of them, thus leading to him being relieved on 23.11.2019. The learned standing counsel submits that in spite of the fact that the petitioner's father has been so relieved, he has refused to join Guntur and therefore, that the continuance of the petitioner in the fourth respondent school cannot be now permitted.

(3.) Even when I find some force in the afore submissions of Sri.M.K.Padmanabhan Nair, the learned standing counsel for the school, it is without doubt that the year 2020 has presented extra ordinary impediments for everyone. It is no different for the petitioner and therefore, if she is to be transferred to Guntur now, it would be impossible for her to join the said school or to continue her studies, which certainly would irreparably prejudice her future.