“The Finance Department of the Delhi government has approved a grant of Rs 87 lakh for financial assistance to these students. It would cover around 12,000 students in different schools,” said an affidavit filed by Sunita Kaushik, Additional Director of Education with the Directorate of Education in the Delhi High Court.

The government’s financial assistance is based on a notification dated January 25, 2007, issued by the Delhi Government to grant financial assistance to all children admitted under the ‘Quota for the Economically Weaker Section’ in different private, recognised schools of Delhi functioning on government land.

The High Court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by advocate Ashok Agarwal seeking judicial intervention on why the government has been delaying the disbursing of money for school uniforms and books for the past seven months since the beginning of the academic year 2008-09, despite penning a law — the Delhi School Education (Free Seats for Students Belonging to the Economically Weaker Sections) Order, 2006— in January 2007. The law had come into force after the High Court directed the “several hundred unaided recognised schools in Delhi” functioning on land provided by the DDA, to open its doors to financially backward children. One of the express conditions in the HC judgment, which was later converted to law by the government, was that “the students admitted against the free seats would get financial assistance, at par with the students of government schools, for expenditure on uniform and books”.

As per the law, the Secretary (Education) of the Delhi government was to disburse the required amount for school uniforms and books to students through the heads of the schools concerned.

In November 2008, the department had informed the court via an affidavit that 10,262 children were admitted under the freeship quota in the academic year 2008-09.

“As financial assistance was to be given to all students studying as of date under the freeship quota, for which figures were being collected from the schools, the finance department was approached for the sanction of financial assistance for a tentative number of 12,000 children,” Kaushik stated in her affidavit filed in the High Court on January 7.

Funds have been allocated to all districts except the south, as the total expenditure exceeds the amount approved by the Finance Department, which has been approached again for additional grants, the affidavit said.

The deputy directors of each district are at present in the process of drawing the allocated amount and preparing cheques and delivering them to the private schools for distribution among the under-privileged students, Kaushik informed the court.