SC reserves verdict on TN Education Act

Updated on: Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Supreme Court reserved its verdict on the validity of the amendment brought by the Jayalalithaa government to defer implementation of the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education (Amendment) Act, 2011.

A three-judge bench of justices J M Panchal, Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan, also extended till August 10 the deadline for distribution of over 9 crore text books.

Tamil Nadu government had moved the apex court challenging the state High Court's decision to quash the amendment brought in by way of Section 3 to defer implementation of the Act.

The AIADMK government had taken the plea that it wanted to defer implementation of the Act as the text books printed contained material allegedly promoting the interests of the previous DMK government and its MP Kanimozhi.

The state had challenged the high court's order on the ground that it was "illegal and erroneous."

The high court had also directed the state government to distribute the textbooks printed under the Uniform System of Education to enable teachers commence classes and to complete the exercise by July 22.

Tamil Nadu has over 1.2 crore students in four streams of school education 45,000 state board schools, 11,000 matriculation schools, 25 oriental schools and 50 Anglo-Indian schools, all with separate syllabus, textbooks and schemes of examinations.

'Samacheer Kalvi' scheme, aimed at bringing about a uniform education, was shelved by Jayalalithaa in one of her first acts since returning to power of reversing several pet schemes of the previous DMK government.

SC reserves verdict on TN Education Act

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