Madras High Court grants interim relief to American International School Chennai

The Madras High Court on Friday, April 28, granted interim relief to American International School Chennai (AISC) on a writ petition filed by it challenging the applicability of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools (Regulation) Act of 2018 which came into force this year pursuant to the framing of the statutory rules under the law.

The Madras High Court on Friday, April 28, granted interim relief to American International School Chennai (AISC) on a writ petition filed by it challenging the applicability of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools (Regulation) Act of 2018 which came into force this year pursuant to the framing of the statutory rules under the law.

Justices S.S. Sundar and P.B. Balaji ordered maintenance of status quo after Senior Counsel Satish Parasaran told the court that the State law could not be made applicable to the AISC since it was an institution established on the basis of a bilateral agreement between the Government of India and the United States.

The counsel also said the AISC had been functioning at Taramani in Chennai since 1995 to cater to the educational needs of the children of expatriates, especially the American nationals residing in Chennai. At present, the school had a strength of over 650 children belonging to 24 different nationalities and 91% of them were not Indian nationals.

The Division Bench was further informed that AISC had already filed a writ petition challenging the applicability of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act of 2009 in so far as it mandates filling up of 25% of seats in all private schools with children belonging to weaker sections of society and that case was still pending.

Now that the State government had brought into force a new law governing private schools, the AISC had come up with the present petition contending that it could not be made applicable to it.