Supreme Court Issues Notice to Union Govt Over Denial of Samagra Shiksha Funds to Tamil Nadu

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (September 1) issued a notice to the Union government after the Tamil Nadu government said that the Union government's refusal to part with its share of the funds under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme (SSS) for admission of students from economically weaker sections under the Right to Education Act to private schools had created a financial burden on the state.

The notice was issued by a Supreme Court bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta on an appeal by Tamil Nadu against a Madras high court order in June, The Hindu reported. Amid the ongoing tussle over the implementation of the New Education Policy (NEP) between the centre and Tamil Nadu, on June 10, the Madras high court delinked the reimbursements under the RTE Act from the Union government's financial obligations to the state under the SSS.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) A.R.L. Sundaresan said to the court that there will be issues in disbursement of funds as SSS was aligned with the provisions of NEP which was an integrated scheme that sees education as a continuum from pre-school to Class 12. He also said that it was the primary responsibility of the state government to implement the RTE Act.

“The state government has an obligation to reimburse private unaided schools. Non-receipt of funds from the Union government cannot be cited as a reason to wriggle out of this statutory obligation,” the high court had said.

In the Supreme Court on September 1, senior advocate P. Wilson, appearing for Tamil Nadu, said that the high court's directions for making reimbursements had created a "financial burden" of over Rs 342 crores on the state.

Wilson said that for the academic years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, the centre had failed to release Rs 342.69 crores, representing its 60% share.

In its plea before the Supreme Court, Tamil Nadu has said that the centre also has a concurrent responsibility under Section 7 of the RTE Act, 2009 for funding education. Wilson said that the Madras high court erred in ruling that only the state is primarily responsible for these expenditures, with the court directing that the state bear the entire financial responsibility for the 2025-26 academic year, while it should have also directed the centre to contribute.

“The legislative intent behind the Section 7 was to ensure that the State could not suffer any paucity of funds leading to failure in implementation of the provisions of the Act it was due to this reason a concurrent responsibility to both the Central and State Government has been entrusted,” said the petition by Tamil Nadu seen by The Wire.

The petition also said that it is “common knowledge that the Central government has been propagating its political agendas through the Samagra Shiksha scheme.”

“A disagreement in political ideology cannot become an obstacle for a State government from implementing the provisions of the Samagra Shiksha scheme and the RTE Act. Unless both the Central and the State governments work in unison, the provisions of the RTE Act and Samagra Shiksha Scheme cannot be implemented in their full spirit. The fundamental right to education cannot be implemented at the discretion of the Central government,” it further said.

Meanwhile Congress MP from Tiruvallur Sasikanth Senthil called off his hunger strike "temporarily" on September 1. Senthil had announced his hunger strike on August 29 against the centre's decision to withhold funds due to Tamil Nadu under the SSS which he said "put the future of 43 lakh students and 2.2 lakh teachers in Tamil Nadu in grave uncertainty."

On August 31, the third day of his strike Senthil was shifted from Tiruvallur government hospital to Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai. He called off his strike on Monday due to appeal from INDIA alliance leaders, following his health condition. 

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