G. MURUGENDRAN Vs. UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner/Party -in -Person is the father of the minor Sri Jeevan, who was born on 15.09.2011 and aged about 3 years and 5 months. The petitioner is an Advocate by profession and since he is residing in Adyar, he is searching for a school to admit his son in the nearby vicinity of his residence and found that the respondent school, namely "Sishya" is situated within 1km from his residence and it is very convenient to drop and pick up his son from the school. The petitioner would further state that he approached the school authorities for admission to L.K.G. class in the year 2015 in the month of October 2013 and he was not allowed to meet the Principal and Correspondent and with great difficulty, managed to get appointment through on -line and met the Principal and Correspondent in the year 2013, however he was informed that for admissions for the academic year commencing 2015, it will be made in the year 2014 and he could find out the same in the website. Information obtained from the website made in the month of November 2014 states that for admissions for the year 2015 will be opened on 2014 and admission interviews will be conducted on the Wednesday of every week from 9 a.m to 1.00 p.m. and the parents need to book an appointment time slot through website. It is further stated by the petitioner that for admission to L.K.G class, the child or ward must be 3 years plus by 1st of December of the previous year and the parents should register their children in the year of birth, as admission is on first come basis and certain seats are reserved for Christians and priorities from the waiting list are given to those children who already have siblings in the school, Christians and children of old students.

(2.) THE grievance expressed by the petitioner is that the above said procedure adopted by the school authorities, is not valid in the eye of law and inspite of that by fixing appointment through online, he and his wife participated in the interview conducted by the 3rd and 4th respondent and they have not been issued with the application forms and once again fixed the appointment and appeared on 28.1.2015 and at that time also, he was not given any reply as to the admission of the students and he has not been informed about the results of the interview also and therefore, he came forward to file this writ petition.

(3.) PER contra, Mr. Sathish Parasaran, learned counsel appearing for the respondent school has invited the attention of this Court to the counter affidavit as well as the additional counter affidavit filed by the respondents 3 to 5 and would submit that the petitioner is a religious self -financing minority institution and therefore, the writ petition is not at all maintainable. On merits of the case, the learned counsel appearing for the respondent school would contend that 90 admissions are granted for each academic year insofar as L.K.G. is concerned and the parents should register their children in the year they are born and at the age of admission to L.K.G., the child must be 3 years plus and for admissions to the year 2015, children born in the year 2011 would be eligible to join the L.K.G and admittedly, the petitioner registered his son's name in the year 2011. As regards admission procedure, it is submitted by the learned counsel appearing for the respondent that 90 seats are split up into two categories, namely 70 applicants who are confirmed their ward's admission and the remaining 20 are given chance or waiting list registrations and for the academic year 2015, children with confirmed registrations, siblings, Christian children and children of alumni were called in October/November 2014 and during the said process, 88 seats were filled and the balance seats remained for allocation to waitlisted candidates. On the legal plea, it is the submission of the learned counsel appearing for the respondent/school that in the light of the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in T.M.A. Pai Foundation and Others v. State of Karnataka and Others [ : (2002) 8 SCC 481], right to establish and administer school conferred upon non -minority educational institution is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India and it has been further held in the said decision that conferring maximum autonomy upon private unaided schools would be in the interest of general public as it would ensure that more such institutions are established and hence, prays for dismissal of this writ petition.