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The Supreme Court on Friday imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh on the United Voice for Education Forum NGO, while rejecting its plea seeking to set aside the top court's 2014 decision to exempt minority educational institutions from the provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.
An enraged bench led by Justice BV Nagarathna remarked that such petitions challenging the top court's Constitutional Bench judgement will break down the entire judicial system. The top court observed that it is restraining itself from issuing criminal contempt of court against the petitioner. "What's wrong with you? You want to break down a system. We are not entertaining any Writ Petition against our own Order. How dare you do this? Don't you know practice? Now we'll start penalising. This will cause a breakdown of the entire system. We are enraged," Justice Nagarathna said. Question the petitioners further, Justice Nagarathna added, "What kind of advice are advocates giving? We will start penalising advocates for (giving) wrong advice. No Writ Petition is maintainable against judgement of the Supreme Court. This is the grossest abuse of the process of law and of the court. We dismiss this petition with a cost of Rs 1 lakh payable to the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee within a period of... Let this be an example for all other such petitioners." The petitioner NGO had sought directions from the top court to bring all minority institutions, aided or unaided, under the purview of the reasonable regulatory provisions of Section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act 2009 to ensure quality, inclusivity and accountability. Additionally, the NGO sought to challenge the constitutional validity of a 2014 top-court ruling that had upheld the exemption granted to minority educational institutions from the provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. Moreover, the plea sought the constitution of an Expert Committee that would recommend a framework which balances both Article 30 (Right of Minority Institutions to manage their own affairs) and Article 21A (right to free education for children aged 6-14 years) of the Indian Constitution. However, the Supreme Court was irked by the manner in which the petitioner NGO had moved before it in having challenged its ruling in a Writ petition. (The valid procedure to challenge a top-court ruling is by moving a Curative or a Review petition). Thus, it rejected the plea and imposed an exemplary cost of 1 lakh on the petitioner NGO. (ANI)
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