The high court on Tuesday berated the State government for not taking effective steps to bring dropouts back to school and observed that “education has become a luxury and child labour compulsory” in the state.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice D H Waghela and Justice B V Nagarathna passed directions to submit details on the number of children re-admitted to schools this academic year and the children still out of school.

The Bench was hearing a suo motu petition based on media reports that even after the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, there are still 54,000 dropouts in the state.

Jayna Kothari, representing Azim Premji Foundation, submitted that the Punjab and Haryana High Court had banned all kinds of child labour in April 2013 and sought a similar ruling in the state.

Noting that the Labour Department has failed to identify child labourers in unorganised sectors, the Bench directed officials to involve department officials, staff of gram panchayats and social activists to bring children back to schools.

The Bench also directed the government to consider implementing the recommendations of the coordination committee on bringing dropouts back to school and adjourned the petition till June 16.

Petition on Kheny’s Nomination

The high court dismissed an interlocutory application filed by Ashok Kheny, Bidar South MLA and MD of NICE,  seeking to quash a petition challenging his nomination.

T J Abraham’s petition questioned the acceptance of Kheny’s nomination papers as he is not a registered voter in any of the constituencies.

Justice Keshavanarayana observed that Abraham had filed all documents related to his petition and the arguments will start from April 21. The petitioner contended that Kheny is not a registered voter and cannot be an MLA as he had voluntarily accepted US citizenship.

Minimum 2-yr Term for IPS Officers

A petition questioning the deferment of fixing the minimum tenure policy for IPS officers was disposed on Tuesday.

The PIL was disposed of after the State government submitted that IPS officers in the state too will have a minimum two-year tenure as per the minimum tenure policy. The petition was filed by Sai Datta, a social worker based in the city.

He claimed that in its notification issued on January 31, the State government deferred the fixing of minimum tenure for IPS cadre officers stating that the same will be notified separately.

The petitioner sought a direction to the State government to follow the IPS (cadre) Amendment Rules, 2014.

Date: April 9th, 2014

Source: The New Indian Express