The Supreme Court on Thursday by a majority of 2:1 upheld the constitutional validity of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act(RTI), 2009. The ruling is a shot in the arm for the Centre as the legislation was its flagship programme designed to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6 to 14 years, despite stiff opposition from unaided private institutions.

The law provides for reservation of 25 percent seats for poor children in all government, private aided and unaided schools but not in minority institutions and it is aimed at uplifting the socially and economically vulnerable sections of society.

The apex courts judgment, reserved on August 3, 2011 after a marathon hearing which went for months , was pronounced by a bench comprising of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice K.S.P. Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar ,on a batch of petitions filed by Society for Unaided Private Schools, Independent Schools Federation of India and others who contended that the Act violates the rights of private educational institutions under Article 19(1)(g) which provided unhindered autonomy to private managements to run their institutions.

The RTE Act would not apply to unaided private minority institutions .The majority judgment by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar said: “Reservation of 25 per cent in such unaided minority schools will result in changing the character of the schools if the right to establish and administer such schools flows from the right to conserve the language, script or culture, which right is conferred on such unaided minority schools. Thus, the 2009 Act including Section 12(1) (c) violates the right conferred on such unaided minority schools under Article 30(1).”

The verdict will apply from the academic year 2012-13. However, admissions given by unaided minority schools prior to the pronouncement of this judgment shall not be reopened.

The Bench said: “It is true that, as held in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation as well as the P.A. Inamdar judgments, the right to establish and administer an educational institution is a fundamental right, as long as the activity remains charitable under Article 19(1) (g). However, in the said two decisions the correlation between Articles 21 and 21A, on the one hand, and Article 19(1) (g), on the other, was not under consideration.Further, the content of Article 21A flows from Article 45 (as it then stood). The 2009 Act has been enacted to give effect to Article 21A. For the above reasons, since the Article 19(1) (g) right is not an absolute right as Article 30(1), the 2009 Act cannot be termed as unreasonable.”

The law now will empower the government to ensure students from the alienated segments of the society also have access to affordable ,inclusive and sustained quality education at the elementary level.

Talking to reporters, Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said on Monday that "The government needs to recruit 20 lakh teachers to successfully implement the Right to Education Act.The implementation of the Act was a difficult task and the only solution would be to hire teachers even if they did not have the required qualification."

The RTI bears added significance in the Indian context as a counter offensive where acute poverty and illiteracy is the single largest social scourge that accentuates the rural downturn. The Education For All–Global Monitoring Report finds that India is still home to largest illiterate population.About 72 million primary school age children and another 71 million adolescents are not at school, and on current trends, 56 million primary school age children will still be out of school in 2015, It finds that with the exception of China, progress towards halving illiteracy has been "painfully slow."

This is why the RTI is exalted as a landmark legislation.The purpose and object of the Act is “social inclusiveness in the field of elementary education." The apex court said that the Act has been enacted keeping in mind the crucial role of universal elementary education for strengthening the social fabric of democracy through provision of equal opportunities to all and ruled that “From the scheme of Article 21A and the 2009 Act, it is clear that the primary obligation is of the State to provide for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and, particularly, to children who are likely to be prevented from pursuing and completing the elementary education due to inability to afford fees or charges.”

Many north Indian states children borne to poor parents are forced to discontinue their education and go for menial jobs due to poverty or lack of conscience in those classes.

We brag to have the largest network of State run public institutions in the world.The country has over 0.9 million schools, 3.6 million school teachers and 143 million children in the 6-14 years age group .We have the largest noon meal program in schools covering 131.69 million children. We have the largest immunization program and nutrition program with 1.4 million early child care (anganwadi) centers covering over 80 million children which addresses children from the most vulnerable communities such as the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes through affirmative action as mandated by the Constitution of India. Further the Government is commitment to build 6,500 ‘model' schools in backward areas; of these, 3,000 would be developed through public-private-partnership investment.

The Centre provides 65 per cent of the funds for school education under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan while the states bear the 35%. The 13th Finance Commission allocated additional resources when the Act was notified. This raised the sharing pattern to 68:32 between the Centre and the States.