This is in addition to annual quota of 25 p.c. seats of intake under RTE Act

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The court directed that all the petitioner-schools will now have to fill up additional 10 p.c. seats under the RTE quota, apart from earmarking annual 25 p.c. of seats for the annual quota under the RTE Act till the schools exhaust the total “backlog” of 75 p.c. seats by admitting additional 10 p.c. seats under this quota every year. Justice L. Narayana Swamy passed the order while dismissing petitions filed by the managements of around 23 schools, including various branches of Sindhi High School, Delhi Public School, National Public School, and the Managements of Independent CBSE Schools’ Association, Karnataka.

No certificate

The court said a “minority” educational institution can be exempted from admitting students from government- sponsored RTE quota only if it possesses a “minority status certificate” issued by a competent authority, constituted under the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act, 2004.

As the petitioner-schools do not possess “minority status certificate” and their applications are pending for consideration before the competent authorities concerned, the court asked both Centre and State governments to process applications of petitioner-schools expeditiously within an outer time limit of six month. The court also asked the government to issue a circular or order on admission to “backlog” seats.

This is in addition to the annual quota of 25 p.c. seats of intake under the

RTE Act