#school funding

The Bombay High Court has mandated that the Zilla Parishad decide pending reimbursement claims from RTE-compliant schools within three weeks, affirming that delayed payments violate the state’s constitutional duty to fund statutory educational obligations. This ruling directly impacts hundreds of private schools financially strained by unreimbursed costs for admitting EWS students, reinforcing that compliance cannot be penalized by administrative inertia.

Private schools cannot demand retroactive grant-in-aid payments merely because they later qualified under updated state policy. The Bombay High Court affirmed that such funding is a policy choice, not a legal entitlement, safeguarding state fiscal autonomy and preventing unpredictable liabilities in public education financing.