Following Vivek High Schools (Sector 38) claims of being a minority school,the Education department has asked the school to update the Right to Education Act (RTE) form it had submitted in 2011. Deputy DPI (S) Chanchal Singh and three other members of the department visited the school on November 25 to see if the school was running as per RTE norms. The school has now sought four to five days to provide the supporting documents to the department. Principal H S Mamik said that he had asked the department to give in writing that they had accepted that the school is a minority. Since we have not got any response from the other side,we would need more time to submit the documents which the department has asked for, said Mamik. However,DPI (S) Kamlesh Kumar said the education department wanted to know how the school was functioning on the grounds of the RTE Act,which is why the school has been asked to update the RTE form. As of now,we have not touched upon the agenda of their claimed minority status. We just want the school to provide us the updated RTE form in regard to the changes brought in after 2011, said Kumar. Though the department has taken cognizance of the issue,no action has been taken yet. The DPI (S) said that the Minority Commission was aware of the schools claim and that the commission was the ultimate authority to take action. Meanwhile,H S Mamik said,Our last hearing was in 2012,when the Chairman of the National Minority Commission of Educational Institutions,Justice M A Siddique,asked us to show the original affidavits. But we took photocopies by chance. On March 24,2014,we have to present the original documents of the two affidavits before the Commission. Article 30 of the constitution says that if the institute is run by people belonging to a minority community,it is automatically a minority. We applied for minority status to the Minority Commission in 2012 and got it. We just have to show the affidavits in the next hearing, added Mamik.
