Free education is part of right to life: court

• Providing free and compulsory education is intended to allow all children in the age group 6-14 live with dignity, which is a facet of "right to life' under Article 21 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court said
• A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar was hearing arguments on petitions challenging the validity of the Right to Education Act, under which every child aged 6-14 shall have free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till the completion of elementary education.
• Senior counsel Vikas Singh argued that the Act directing schools to provide free and compulsory education to 25 per cent students violated the petitioners' fundamental right to establish and administer the educational institution. The Act was violative of the fundamental right of private, unaided schools enshrined in Article 19(1)(g) — right to profession.
• The CJI told counsel that the right to education should not be read in isolation; it should be tested on the touchstone of Articles 14 (right to equality), 19 (1) (g) and 21.
• When counsel argued that unreasonable restrictions had been imposed on educational institutions, the CJI said, "What we are concerned [with] here is egalitarian equality and not formal equality."
• When Justice Kapadia asked whether the legislature could restrict the age to a particular group, counsel said it had such a power. The CJI then pointed out that similarly the legislature in its wisdom had carved out a particular class of disadvantaged people to provide free elementary education. "Can we not say that this is a reasonable classification within Article 14 itself?"
• The 'Right to life' had undergone a sea change; it would include the right to education and the right to proper health care and "when you test the legality of the law, you have to test the inter-relationships with reference to the Directive Principles of State Policy also. If the object of the Act was to provide inter-generational equality, it would come under right to life," the CJI said.
• Justice Kapadia further said: "When the state says that by providing free elementary education we want every child to live with dignity, can you say that access to education is an unreasonable restriction imposed by the state."