High Court seeks Centre, Delhi Cantonment Board response

Deplorable condition of govt school

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the response of the Centre, the Delhi government and the Delhi Cantonment Board after going through photographs showing deplorable condition of a government school, built on the land belonging to the Ministry of Defence, and lacking adequate infrastructure and teachers.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said though the Delhi Cantonment Board, in another matter, has recently submitted an affidavit that all the government buildings in its area are disabled-friendly, the photographs showed that the school was not at all disabled-friendly.

The court's remark came while hearing a plea by NGO Social Jurist alleging that Rajputana Rifles Heroes Memorial Senior Secondary School in Delhi Cantonment, which has been taken over by the Delhi government since 1975 and getting 100 per cent aid from the state government, was in a horrible condition.

The court also ordered a joint inspection of the school by the officials of the Ministry of Defence and Directorate of Education of Delhi government.

The court asked the inspection team to submit a report and listed the matter for further hearing on August 10. Advocate Ashok Agarwal, appearing for the NGO, said around 450 students are studying in the school and they have been unjustly deprived of adequate physical infrastructure and academic faculty to educate them.

The plea said though the school is open for all, it mainly caters to the children of servants of military officials who are not in a position to educate their kids in private school.

It alleged that the school lacks basic amenities, including potable drinking water, functional toilets, science and computer labs, clean classrooms and proper boundary wall and several posts of teaching staff are lying vacant.

The petition sought direction that the existing building of the school be demolished and rebuilt as a state of art school.