The Supreme Court on Friday declined to pass a direction on a plea seeking a uniform school syllabus for students in the 6-to-14 age group, saying the backs of students were “already breaking” under the weight of heavy bags.

The court also rejected the plea of the petitioner, advocate Ashwini Upadhyaya, to direct the government to alternatively consider his PIL as a representation for a “one nation-one syllabus” theory, saying he cannot use the judicial forum to enter the domain of education policy.

“Our children already have such heavy bags. Their backs are already breaking with this weight. Why do you want to put some extra we-ight?” Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a three-judge bench, asked Upadhyaya.

The petitioner had urged the court to direct the government to set up a National Education Council and merge education boards such as the CBSE and the CISCSE so as to have a common syllabus.

“How can you ask us to merge the CBSE board with the ICSE and so on…? These are not functions of the court. These are matters of policy,” Justice Chandrachud told Upadhyaya.

Later, the bench that also had Justices Indu Malhotra and K.M. Joseph said in a written order: “…We reject the submission for issuing a mandamus for constituting a single board…. The petition lays no foundation or justiciable basis for the court to issue directions of this nature. We decline to allow the office of this court to be used for directing that the suggestions which have been made by the petitioner be considered by the authorities. This is nothing but an effort to confer legitimacy on the petitioner’s attempt to enter into an area of educational policy. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed.”

The petitioner had claimed that the concept of “one nation one syllabus” would foster equal opportunities, assure dignity of individuals, strengthen socialism and secularism, and promote fraternity, unity and national integration.

Besides seeking a uniform syllabus and a National Education Commission, Upadhyaya had demanded the exploration of the feasibility of introducing a standard textbook having chapters on fundamental rights, duties, directive principles and the golden goals set out in the Preamble.