Getting information of recognition, audit statement self declaration & etc of School Under RTE Act 2009- The common people if follow this strategy properly sooner or later should get all the information which is mandatory upon the school managements whether aided school, unaided school, minority schools etc to provide under the RTE Act 2009 (The Right Of Children To Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009) to the District Education Officer like infrastructure, number of students, teacher-students ratio, whether pure drinking water is available or not, whether separate toilets for boys and girls are made & most important, even get the certified audit statement of the school which as per the law is mandatory for every school to submit at the District Education Officer. The parents are also unaware of the fact that if the school managements willfully avoid providing these information they can be fined & prosecuted by the concerned government.
Introduction-Getting Self Declaration & Audit Statement of School Under RTE Act 2009-
The RTE Act 2009 (The Right Of Children To Free And Compulsory Education Act, 2009) is applicable to whole of India and as the model rules published by the central government are implemented by many states by formulating the rules, thus principal act is same for all the states and as the rules framed by many states are almost similar and hence the strategy given here may be used by the parents of any states by making necessary modifications).
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As the organization has come to know the serious fact that the taking benefit of the ignorance of the parents about existing laws, not only schools but also the corrupt public officers have conspired with such errant schools who loot parents by collecting illegal, excessive and capitation fees and further go up to the extent of inflicting mental and physical punishments upon the innocent children for collection of such illegal fees, it is necessary to provide legal weapons to the parents to fight against such injustice!
Hence parents need to know that if they use laws properly, even a Rs.10/- RTI application can bring the effective and revolutionary results and also may result in stern action not only against the errant schools but also against public officers who conspire with such schools.
Parent’s condition-
It is generally seen that the parents fail to get any type of the information about the schools. Neither the Education Officers nor the schools provide such information to the parents which are of extreme importance like information about the infrastructure, recognition certificate of the school, no objection certificate of the school, certified audit statement, teacher-student ratio, number of urinals and toilets especially whether available to girl and boys separately, whether pure water facility is provided or not etc..
Parents do many visits to the concerned Education Officers, do many protests, launch hunger strikes, file many applications but fail to get the information mentioned above. Many times concerned officials appoint 3 member committee and provide such information to the parents in incomplete manner causing delay of many months, sometimes years thereby causing huge mental, physical harassment to the parents.
Some Important Legal Provisions-
However most of the parents may get pleasant surprise after knowing the fact that there are many provisions existing under the RTE Act 2009 (The Right Of Children To Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009) and rules made in the year of 2011 in state of Maharashtra (such rules must be existing in other states also) which cast a duty upon Education Officer to publish such a information in the public domain (e.g. official website etc).
In this articles we will focus of how to compel the Education Officer to publish such information about the school in public domain by simply using an RTI application. For this purpose we will see some following provisions under The Maharashtra Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2011 ( as mentioned above same rules must be existent in other states also)-
As per the rules of 2011 above mentioned, it is mandatory upon the schools to submit the Form I, Form II & Form III before the state government. For the sake of convenience we will take some important provisions related to these forms as follows:
A) Various Information Under Form I-
Rule No.11 states as follows:
’11.Recognition of schools for purposes of section 18.
(2) Every self declaration received in Form-1 shall be placed by the District Education Officer in public domain displaying it on a notice board, website etc, within fifteen days of its receipt.’
Further Form I includes following information under the rules above mentioned-
Recognition of the school, infrastructure, grants, registration details of the trust, use of the building of the school, number of students, teacher students ratio, whether pure drinking water is available or not, whether separate toilets for boys and girls are available or not etc.
It is clear that the rules make it compulsory and cast mandatory duty upon the every Education Officer to publish such information in public domain!
B) Certified Audit Statement under Form II-
As per the Form-II, the school has to accept 19 conditions set by the act and further has to give an undertaking that they shall not violate these norms. For e.g., as per norm 15 as follows-
15.The accounts should be audited and certified by a Chartered Accountant and proper accounts statements should be prepared as per rules. A copy each of the Statements of Accounts should be sent to the DEO every year.
Which clearly implies that DEO has all the information of the profit loss and expenditure details of all the schools and yet when parents complain to him about exorbitant fees, they willfully show ignorance and keep playing delay tactics with the parents!
What if the schools do not follow these rules:
As per the act and rules, criminal prosecution can be initiated against the concerned schools and also U/S.18(5) of the Act, fine of Rupee One lac can be imposed against the school and further fine of Rs.10000/- per day the rules were violated can be imposed against the schools.
How to get such information published in public domain or receive it personally-
Many parents must have heard about Right to Information Act 2005. It is unfortunate that many people do not use provisions of this act effectively and those parents who do use, after filing and rejection of RTI application, most of them do not follow the remedies of First Appeal or Second Appeal and leave the battle in half.
The public officers refusing to give such information can be punished by imposing fine of Rs.25000/- which further spoils their service records and also information refused within prescribed time can be given free of cost to the applicant. Recently PIO of Ministry of Education was fined Rs.25000/- for not providing the information to the education activist from Mumbai, the detailed article can be read as follows-
Maharashtra Ministry of Education neglects RTI Act 2005 gets slapped with fine of Rs.25000/-
Hence appeal is made to all the parents to use the RTI act effectively. If it is properly used, thousands of public officers may be punished and be imposed fine of Rs.25000/- which may cause loss to the public exchequer and under these circumstances state government has to intervene or if they don’t courts for sure do intervene and strict appropriate actions and directions are given to such department.
Thus a simple Rs.10/- RTI application can teach permanent lesson to the errant schools and corrupt public officers if used with persistence.
How to file RTI-
Some sample RTIs have been given below for the parents of Maharashtra as follows:-
A) Application to get Form I, Self Declaration Form-
Application Under Right to Information Act 2005
Date-
Affix Rs.10 Court Fee Stamp
To,
The Public Information Officer
Office of District Education Officer
From-
(Applicant’s name and address including contact details)
Period of information-
Reference to information- The Right Of Children To Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and rules made in the year of 2011.
Particulars of the information-
Dear Sir/Madam,
Please provide me the information along with the copies of the relevant documents of –
1) The copy of the Form I, Self Declaration form submitted by the ‘——’ school at your office.
2) Details of the information published by your office in public domain under the rule no.11 of 2011-
(11.Recognition of schools for purposes of section 18. (2)- Every self declaration received in Form-1 shall be placed by the District Education Officer in public domain displaying it on a notice board, website etc, within fifteen days of its receipt).
3) (If no action is taken as per the rule no.11) reasons for not displaying such self declaration of ‘—’ school in public domain.
Whether applicant belongs to Below Poverty Line-Yes/No
Mode of information to be provided– In person/ Normal Post/ Speed Post
Yours Sincerely,
B) RTI Application to get certified audit statement of the school-
Application Under Right to Information Act 2005
Date-
Affix Rs.10 Court Fee Stamp
To,
The Public Information Officer
Office of District Education Officer
From-
(Applicant’s name and address including contact details)
Period of information-
Reference to information- The Right Of Children To Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and rules made in the year of 2011.
Particulars of the information-
Dear Sir/Madam,
Please provide me the information along with the copies of the relevant documents of –
1) Copy of the Certified Audit Statement of ‘—’ school, as per the rule of 2012, Form II norm 15-
’15.The accounts should be audited and certified by a Chartered Accountant and proper accounts statements should be prepared as per rules. A copy each of the Statements of Accounts should be sent to the DEO every year.’
2) Action taken by your department if such Chartered Accountant Certified Audit Statement is not submitted at your office.
Whether applicant belongs to Below Poverty Line-Yes/No
Mode of information to be provided– In person/ Normal Post/ Speed Post
Yours Sincerely,
Appeal to the parents-
Imagine if not lacs, even if thousands of parents had filed and pursued in this way since the enactment of The Right Of Children To Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and rules framed thereafter, till date, information of the thousands of schools could have been put online and in public domain which further could have exposed their illegalities abovementioned. Also it could have exposed many Education Officers who deliberately did not upload such information in public domain.
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-Adv.Siddharthshankar Sharma
Founder President-Bharatiya Krantikari Sangathan
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