TN counsel admits in SC that Edu Act amendment was a mistake

Updated on: Friday, July 29, 2011

In an embarrassment to the Jayalalithaa Government, senior counsel P P Rao stated in the Supreme Court that the controversial amendment to the State's School Education Act for scrapping the curriculum approved by the previous DMK regime was "unnecessary" and ill-advised.

Rao, who is appearing for the State, told the apex court that the amendment was brought in on the basis of wrong legal opinion which has now landed the Government in trouble.

"Yes, I agree sound, bold and independent legal opinion was not given that the amendment was not necessary.

"It is true by doing an unnecessary thing we have landed ourselves in unnecessary trouble," Rao told a three-judge bench hearing the validity of the amendment to the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education Act, 2010.

Rao made the submission in response to queries made by the bench of J M Panchal, Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan as to what was the need for the amendment when the Madras High Court had already given the State a year's time to implement the Act formulated by the erstwhile DMK Government.

However, the counsel at the conclusion of the day-long hearing told the bench that the views expressed by him were "personal" and claimed that the media was distorting his observation as being that of the State Government.

Senior counsel A Sundaram appearing for some of the schools submitted that the power to legislate or carry out the amendments was the prerogative of the Legislature and courts cannot and should not interfere in the matters unless it violated the Constitution.

On July 21, the apex court had refused to stay the Madras High Court order quashing the amendment and had asked the state government to distribute over 9 crore text books, printed as per the course curriculum, approved by the previous government.

It, however, allowed the government to distribute the books by August 2, instead of July 22 as fixed by the High Court.

The AIADMK Government brought in the amendment on the ground that books printed by the previous DMK Government lavished praised on the party leaders particularly its MP and 2G spectrum scam accused Kanimozhi.

The Jayalalithaa government had moved the apex court challenging the Madras High Court's order which had struck down an amendment to the Tamil Nadu Uniform System of School Education (Amendment) Act, 2011.

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 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 AngloIndian schools, all with separate syllabus, textbooks and schemes of examinations.

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

TN counsel admits in SC that Edu Act amendment was a mistake

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