Delhi High Court issued notices to the city government and the municipal corporation on Monday for the alleged denial of uniform and textbook allowances to over six lakh poor children in public-funded schools in the last six years.

The high court bench, headed by acting Chief Justice Manmohan, was hearing a public interest litigation petition filed by the civil rights group Social Jurist.

The petitioner alleged that children enrolled in Classes I to VIII in schools of the Delhi government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had to forgo allowances because they did not have bank accounts to which the amount could be transferred.

The PIL was based on an audit memo of November 2023 by the chief auditor of the MCD that found that these students didn’t receive the benefits between 2016-17 and 2022-23.

“The high court issued notices to the parties to file counter-affidavits within four weeks,” said Ashok Agrawal, an advocate and activist associated with Social Jurist.

“These children have been denied uniforms, school bags, notebooks, scholarships and stationery, which are provided to them every year. Neither the schools nor any authority ever thought of opening their bank accounts. We have pleaded that they should be paid the dues for all these years and a system should be enforced to ensure smooth and timely payment of allowances to all eligible students,” Agrawal said.

According to the audit memo, cash subsidy is provided to the students only through bank accounts to avoid malpractice and misappropriation of funds. The school authorities are supposed to help the students open the accounts. A total of 2,69,488 students in schools run by the Delhi government and 3,83,203 students of MCD schools were deprived of the statutory benefits.

Professor C.B. Sharma, former chairman of the National Institute of Open Schooling, attributed the lackadaisical attitude of the Delhi government to the little scope for pilferage in the transfer of allowance.

“There is no reason for not opening the bank accounts of children. If the officials and schools were given the charge to deal with payment of cash, they might have shown eagerness,” he said.

Sharma said the government is supposed to monitor the implementation of the transfer of allowance as it is a key component of the Right To Education (RTE) Act.

“The central government had adopted direct benefit transfer to beneficiary accounts to check pilferage, but the administration seems to be not so keen to implement it,” he said.

An email was sent to Ashok Kumar, the secretary of education of the Delhi government, to understand his perspective on the alleged denial of the benefits. His response is awaited.