Bombay HC Flags 133 Writ Petitions Over RTE Reimbursement Delays, Calls for Time-Bound Mechanism

The Bombay High Court resolved a contempt petition over withheld RTE dues but warned that indefinite administrative inaction undermines the statute’s social welfare purpose.

A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Justice R. I. Chagla and Justice Farhan P. Dubash, on 7 August 2026 disposed of a contempt petition filed by Om Education Society and associated schools against the State of Maharashtra for non-compliance with an earlier court order. The State had been directed on 26 March 2026 to release reimbursement dues of Rs. 3,65,75,530 to three of the petitioner schools under Section 12(2) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, by 27 May 2026. When payment was not made, the schools moved Contempt Petition No. 408 of 2026. The bench accepted a fresh undertaking from the State to pay within four weeks but went on to record detailed observations about a systemic failure that has generated 133 writ petitions before the court in under eight months of 2026 alone.

The Contempt Petition and the Earlier Order

The underlying Writ Petition No. 3834 of 2026 was filed by the petitioner schools seeking release of reimbursement amounts they claimed were due under Section 12(2) of the RTE Act. On 26 March 2026, the court accepted a statement made by the Additional Government Pleader, on instructions, that the State would reimburse Petitioner Nos. 3 to 5 their pending dues, to the extent found due and payable, within eight weeks from 1 April 2026 — making 27 May 2026 the outer limit.

That deadline passed without compliance. The petitioner schools then filed the contempt petition alleging willful and deliberate breach of the 26 March 2026 order and seeking action against the respondents under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

When the matter was heard on 6 August 2026 and pronounced on 7 August 2026, Smt. Kavita N. Solunke, Additional Government Pleader, appeared with Mr. V. G. Badgujar, AGP, for the State. Mr. Anirudha Kulkarni, Under Secretary, School Education and Sports Department, Mantralaya, Mumbai, was personally present before the bench. On instructions from the Under Secretary, the Additional Government Pleader stated that the State would comply with the 26 March 2026 order and release the admissible amount to the petitioner schools within four weeks from 7 August 2026, and in any event not later than 4 September 2026. The bench accepted that statement as an undertaking to the court.

The Statutory Framework: Section 12 of the RTE Act

The bench set out the framework underlying the dispute. The RTE Act is a social welfare legislation that gives effect to the fundamental right to education for every child between the ages of six and fourteen years. Under Section 12(1)(c), schools falling within Section 2(n)(iii) and (iv) — which includes recognised unaided private schools — must admit at least twenty-five per cent of their Class I strength from weaker sections and disadvantaged groups and provide those children free elementary education until completion.

Section 12(2) creates the corresponding statutory obligation on the State: it must reimburse eligible unaided schools for the expenditure so incurred, up to the per-child-expenditure incurred by the State or the actual amount charged from the child, whichever is lower.

The State Government has framed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2010 and has issued Government Notifications dated 24 May 2012 and 15 March 2013 prescribing the reimbursement procedure. Clause 12 of the 2013 Notification requires schools to submit claims in two instalments and obliges the concerned Education Officer, after verification, to forward eligible claims to the Director of Education (Primary) within one month.

The bench identified a critical gap: neither the Rules nor the 2013 Notification prescribe any timeline after that one-month forwarding stage. There is no time limit within which the Director of Education or the concerned department must process the proposal and release the funds.

The Bench’s Reasoning: Administrative Inaction Cannot Be Indefinite

Justice Farhan P. Dubash, writing the order for the bench, was direct about the consequences of this gap. Schools are required by statute to continuously admit students under the RTE quota and to bear the cost of their education. Yet reimbursement proposals “often remain pending for years together,” placing substantial financial burden on those institutions. The bench acknowledged that the State is entitled to scrutinise proposals and ensure compliance before releasing public funds, but held that such scrutiny “must necessarily be undertaken within a reasonable period.”

The bench recorded that administrative verification cannot become a justification for indefinite inaction. It linked delayed reimbursement directly to the financial viability of unaided schools that continue to discharge their statutory obligations in the interim. The RTE Act, it observed, is meant to facilitate — not discourage — participation of private educational institutions in implementing this social welfare measure. Prolonged delays work against that object.

The scale of the problem was placed on record by the Registry: between 1 January 2026 and 6 August 2026, no fewer than 133 writ petitions were filed in the Bombay High Court seeking directions for release of Section 12(2) reimbursements. A substantial number of those petitions had already been disposed of by directing the State to process and release amounts within stipulated timelines. The contempt petition before the bench was itself a product of non-compliance with one such order. The bench observed that this recurring litigation imposes avoidable hardship on educational institutions and consumes judicial time in matters that ought to be resolved administratively.

The Bench’s Directions for Systemic Reform

The bench expressed the view that unless the reimbursement mechanism is made time-bound, the legislative object underlying Section 12 of the RTE Act is liable to be seriously undermined. The statutory obligation on private unaided schools to provide free education is, it held, inseparably linked to the State’s corresponding obligation to reimburse eligible expenditure. The efficacy of one cannot be divorced from the other.

The bench therefore called on the State Government to undertake a comprehensive review of the existing reimbursement mechanism. That review should examine three specific issues:

• The prescription of definite timelines at every stage of processing reimbursement proposals, from the Education Officer level up to the final release of funds;
• The establishment of an appropriate monitoring mechanism to ensure compliance with those timelines; and
• The adequacy of the existing reimbursement amount, which the bench noted has remained at Rs. 17,670 per child since the academic year 2016-17, despite substantial escalation in educational costs since then.

To carry out this review, the bench expected the State Government to constitute a Committee comprising senior officers of the Finance Department and the School Education and Sports Department, along with any other officers the State considers necessary. The bench directed that the Committee may also invite representations from recognised associations of unaided schools and other stakeholders before making its recommendations. The bench expressed the hope and trust that the exercise would be undertaken expeditiously and, preferably, before the end of calendar year 2026.

Order

The contempt petition was substantially resolved on the strength of the undertaking given by the Additional Government Pleader on instructions from the Under Secretary personally present in court. The State is required to release the admissible reimbursement amount to the petitioner schools on or before 4 September 2026. The matter has been stood over to 7 September 2026 for reporting compliance. Mr. Gaurav Sinha appeared for the petitioners.