Key Highlights Bombay high court judge Vidyasagar Kanade has offered to pay the Rs 10,500 fees to enable a four-year-old to take admission in a school.

Justice Kanade is the second senior-most judge after the chief justice.

MUMBAI: Bombay high court judge Vidyasagar Kanade on Friday offered to pay the Rs 10,500 fees to enable a four-year-old to take admission in a Chembur school.

Justice Kanade is the second senior-most judge after the chief justice. Along with Justice Mahesh Sonak, he heard a petition by Rita Kanojia, 30, seeking a direction to the Lokmanya Tilak High School at Tilak Nagar to give her son, Kartik, admission to junior KG.

Her two girls are in Class III and V at the said school, which is next to the slum where they live. Kanojia's husband used to press clothes. When he died in July, 2014, due to cancer, she was left with four minor children and had to face a miserable time.

She was unable to properly treat a newborn child who subsequently succumbed to ailment and, for several months, her family was forced to live without electricty as she had no money to pay the bill. When she applied for admission for Kartik, Kanojia, who works as a maid, was asked to pay Rs 30,000. At a previous hearing on June 9, the school was directed to process the application without insisting on the building development fund of Rs 19,500.

Her advocate, Prakash Wagh, said the school was unwilling to allow her to pay Rs 10,500 in instalments. "The watchman is directed not to allow her inside," he said. Justice Kanade said that usually it was not the principal or the teachers but the office staff who behaved high-handedly.

The bench said the school must take a sympathetic view. "Don't make it a prestige issue... Treat them properly," said Justice Kanade.

The bench told the counsel for the school to convey the court's views to the principal. Justice Kanade then added, "Or I will pay. Let the child not be deprived of education."

