Sibal welcomes SC verdict on Right to Education Act

New Delhi, Apr 12 (ANI): Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday welcomed the verdict of the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutional validity of the Right to Education Act, 2009, which mandates 25 percent free seats to the poor in government and private unaided schools uniformly across the country.

"I am grateful to the Supreme Court for bringing a clarity through its judgement. I think that the people or institutions associated with education, the Supreme Court has decided to implement 25 percent reservation to all aided institutions including the private aided and minority aided as well," said Sibal.

"The only category of institution, which is exempted of 25 percent reservation, is private minority unaided institution," he added.

A three-judge bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swantanter Kumar today said the act will apply uniformly to government and unaided private schools except unaided private minority schools.

Justice Radhakrishnan, however, in his dissenting opinion took the view that the act would not apply to both unaided private schools as also minority institutions, which do not receive any aid or grant from the government.

Justices Kapadia and Swantanter Kumar, who took the stand that the act would be applicable even to unaided private schools, overruled Justice Radhakrishnan's view.

Sibal further said the Union Cabinet had moved a proposal to endorse registration of marriages as mandatory.

"Amendment to the Registration of the Births and Deaths Act of 1969, now in this Act we will include the registration of marriages as well. So, that the existing administrative mechanism would be able to carry out such registration in marriages in accordance with these specified procedures and to be able to maintain necessary records and statistics for registration marriages also," he added. (ANI)