Litigation against postponement of 'Samacheer Kalvi' scheme in TN

Updated on: Friday, May 27, 2011

A Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Madras High Court challenging the Tamil Nadu Governments decision not to implement the Equitable Standard School Education ('Samacheer Kalvi') scheme in the current academic year.

Advocate K Shyam Sundar submitted in his petition that in accordance with the decision of the previous DMK government, the scheme was introduced for classes between I and VI standards. It had also been decided to extend the newly evolved common syllabus for classes between VII and X standards from the academic year beginning June 2011, thereby covering all the classes, he submitted.

A total of 9 crore books were printed as per the syllabus by spending Rs 200 crores, he said.

Last week, however, the newly sworn in AIADMK governments cabinet decided to postpone implementation of the scheme, he said. It had also decided to form an expert committee to look into the scheme, he added.

Sundar sought an interim direction from the court to the Tamil Nadu Government to implement the scheme for classes between VII to X standards from the next academic year.

The petitioner also sought to declare as illegal the non-implementation of the scheme and direct the State Government to extend the newly evolved common syllabus for classes between II and V standards.

The petitioner said that due to the government's decision to postpone the implementation of the scheme, the opening of the schools had been put off and steps were being taken to get the textbooks printed based on the previous year's syllabus.

"The decision taken by the present government is purely political", he alleged.

Contending that the present government "cannot take shelter under the umbrella of policy decision", the petitioner said the scheme was introduced based on the report of an experts committee and passed by the Legislative Assembly after due
deliberation.

“It is not open to the successive government to ignore the system of education introduced by the previous government, (which causes) huge expenditure to the exchequer", he said, claiming, the decision was "not in the interest of the student community".

Litigation against postponement of 'Samacheer Kalvi' scheme in TN

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