The Madras High Court on Tuesday (June 10, 2025) directed the Union Ministry of Education to consider splitting the disbursal of funds to the Tamil Nadu government under its flagship Samagra Shiksha scheme, so that money needed to reimburse private schools under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act can be disbursed.
The RTE component amounts to about ₹200 crore, while the total amount pending to Tamil Nadu under the SSS amounts to ₹2,151.59 crore, amidst a row over the State’s refusal to implement the National Education Policy, 2020.
The court also told the State government that non-receipt of funds from the Centre cannot be used as a “reason to wriggle out” of its own obligation to pay the private schools.
Concurrent responsibility
A Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and V. Lakshminarayanan noted that the Centre had some issues in releasing SSS funds as the State government has not adopted the NEP. However, it has an independent obligation under the RTE Act of 2009, which has nothing to do with non-adoption of NEP, the judges said.
“Section 7 of the RTE Act states that the Central government and the State governments have concurrent responsibility for providing funds for carrying out the provisions of the Act… Therefore, funds payable to the State Government representing the Central Government’s share towards discharging the RTE obligations need not be linked to NEP 2020,” the Division Bench observed.
Since the Tamil Nadu government had already filed a civil suit before the Supreme Court demanding release of SSS funds of ₹2,151.59 crore, the judges said: “We are not in a position to issue any binding direction in this regard,” and stopped with issuing a direction to the Centre to merely “consider” delinking the RTE component from the SSS funds and disbursing the amount accordingly.
T.N. cannot ‘wiggle out’
On the other hand, taking note of various judicial precedents, the Division Bench directed the State government to reimburse the private schools which make admissions under the RTE Act. “The State government has an obligation to reimburse private unaided schools. Non-receipt of funds from the Union Government cannot be cited as a reason to wriggle out of this statutory obligation,” the court observed.
The orders were passed while disposing of a public interest litigation petition which sought a direction to the State government to commence the RTE admissions for the academic year 2025-26 without any delay. Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran told the court that the State government was unable to reimburse the private schools on time due to non-receipt of Central funds.
He said the ₹188.99 crore expenditure towards RTE reimbursement for the year 2022-23 was borne in entirety by the State government. In view of such complaints, the judges suo motu impleaded the Union Ministry of Education as one of the respondents to the case and requested Additional Solicitor General (ASG) A.R.L. Sundaresan to obtain necessary instructions.
RTE obligations
The ASG told the court that SSS was an integrated scheme that envisages education as a continuum from pre-school to Class 12, and that the scheme was aligned with the provisions of NEP 2020. Since the Tamil Nadu government had not agreed to implement NEP 2020, there were issues regarding the disbursement of funds. He also said that it was the primary responsibility of the State government to implement the RTE Act.
Disagreeing with him, the judges said that both the Centre as well as the State governments were obligated to implement the Act. Authoring the judgement, Justice Swaminathan quoted former Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, saying: “Today, education is perhaps the most important function of the state… It is doubtful any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of education.”
Published – June 10, 2025 11:17 pm IST
