Chennai: A total of 746 matriculation schools in the state, facing threat of closure, got temporary relief as the state government informed the Madras high court that it has taken time till June 30 for initiating necessary action in collateral proceedings.
Additional advocate general, P.H.Arvindh Pandian, made this submission when a PIL from Change India by its director A. Narayanan came up for hearing before a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R.Mahadevan.
The bench said the matter be listed on July 19 as the Additional advocate-general had stated that in collateral proceedings time had been taken up to June 30 for necessary action. The court ordered that another connected petition filed by the affected schools be also posted on the same date.
Narayanan sought to quash a GO dated August 18, 2015, of the school education secretary and consequently to forbear the authorities from granting recognition against law to unrecognised schools not fulfilling the norms specified in various GOs and a Supreme Court judgement, ensure all unrecognised schools were closed by the end of academic year 2015-16 and ensure that students in such schools were placed in other neighbourhood government/government aided/unaided schools.
The state government had on March 7 informed the high court that the temporary conditional recognition granted to schools till May 31, 2016 was a one-time measure and there was no chance for further extension.
