School Education Rules binding on all students

Ashutosh Rout vs. Director of Education and Anr

Filed under: Rule 138 Delhi School Education Rules
Appellant: Ashutosh Rout
Respondent: Director of Education and Anr
Citation: CW 2449/2002 Decided On: 19.07.2002 (Unreported)
Court: In the High Court of Delhi
Judge: Manmohan Sarin

Facts

Ashutosh Rout a physically handicapped person with 70% disability, resulting from a post polio paralysis, was a student in Class XI of the school. He failed in the annual examination, securing 17.2%.

On grounds of sympathy the school offered to give him another chance to improve his position after the summer vacation. The school held another examination for him for Class XI.

Ashutosh’s grievance was that he was no longer being allowed to repeat class XI in that school. He was having Hindi a subject earlier was not given the option of the same subject again.

Hindi was deleted as a subject and instead physical education or mathematics was given as the option. Challenging this, he filed this petition in Delhi High Court.

Arguments made on behalf of Ashutosh

Ashutosh’s lawyer argued that the school only two subjects as options viz., physical education and mathematics. It was argued that physical education as a subject was ruled out for him on account of his disability.

It leaves him only the subject of mathematics. Ashutosh had studied Mathematics upto Class 10th and was not willing to accept the same as a subject as he was not comfortable with it.

Arguments made on behalf of Director of Education

It was argued on behalf of Director of Education that there were hardly any students in the school opting for Hindi. As such Hindi has been deleted as a subject in the school. As an alternative, the school offered the choice of Physical Education or Mathematics to Ashutosh.

Observations of the Court

The Court observed that the school had gone out of its way, firstly to accommodate the student by re-examining him. Besides, he had been given the option to take Mathematics or Physical Education in lieu of Hindi, which had been discontinued in the school.

He declined to avail the option of Mathematics being offered. Not only this, the School had indicated its willingness to issue a character and a transfer certificate to enable him to seek admission elsewhere.

Ashutosh however, insisted that he should be permitted to repeat Class XI with Hindi as one of the subjects. The Court held that in these circumstances no directions could be issued to the School XI for re-admitting the student and to provide him with Hindi as a subject, which had been discontinued.

The petition was therefore, dismissed.