A petition has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) be made a mandatory subject for students in all law colleges and universities.
The PIL which has been filed by an NGO called Social Jurist is expected to be heard by a division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad on March 14, 2023.
The petitioner NGO claims that it addressed a representation to the BCI on February 15 asking that it take the matter into consideration before the start of the next academic year, but that it never heard back.
The University of Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, who are respondents in the PIL, also received copies of the representation.
“The justiciability of the right to education placed a significant burden on lawyers – for lawyers alone can take violators to Court. In the situation of a child, it imposes an additional responsibility on the legal education system to ensure that lawyers are conversant with the nuances of how this right is to be fulfilled…,” the plea stated.
According to the plea, there is a huge responsibility on the legal education system to “train and equip lawyers” for recognising RTE Act violations and pursuing justice for children’s right to education.
“It is claimed that perhaps part of the responsibility for the current passivity about violations of the right to education is because law students and lawyers are taught nothing about the right to education. In fact, the majority of students are uninformed of the fundamental rights enshrined in the RTE Act, 2009,” the petition added.
