Karnataka HC asks education dept to get govt schools to comply with building safety norms

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has directed the Principal Secretary to the Education Department to submit a detailed project plan as regards the manner in which the government schools will comply with the various legal requirements about building/fire safety.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj has also directed the Principal Secretary to create an IT portal on his website, indicating the details of such compliances required to be made by each of the schools imposed in the provisional recognition or the like, enabling the schools to upload the compliances made from time to time.

The court said this while granting time to the petitioners -- association of unaided recognized schools and individual unaided schools -- until the next academic year to comply with the requirements under all laws, rules and regulations applicable. While doing so, the court said that the government has to act as a model citizen and comply with all applicable rules at government schools which it requires a private citizen to comply with.

“The said portal to also be connected with all concerned departments/organisations/ authorities by using an Application Programming Interface (API) or the like so that all permissions and sanctions relating a particular school at a particular location can be automatically secured from such authority and incorporated into the portal and/or when any document is uploaded the authenticity and veracity of the document can be checked,” Justice Suraj Govindaraj said, while directing the authority to submit the project report within a period of six weeks.

The court observed that the Education Department is granting provisional recognition before the requirements under the Karnataka Educational Institutions (classification, regulation and prescription of curricula etc,) Rules are complied with. The schools are provided a timeframe of one year for compliance.

“However, even with regard to the said compliance, there is no methodology which has been established by the Education Department to ensure whether those conditions have been complied with or not. Without such compliance, the Education Department has been issuing recognition to the schools and no documents are collected by the concerned authorities after the provisional recognition is issued at the time of grant of final recognition,” the court said.

The court has directed the Education Department to formulate a detailed action plan as regards the manner in which the government schools will comply with the various legal requirements such as furnishing of structural stability certificate, obtaining and furnishing the plan sanction relating to the building where the school is being run and compliance of fire safety requirements/facilities, which are applicable to private schools aided or unaided. 

In the case at hand, the petitioners had challenged the circular issued in 2022, relating to compliance of fire safety standards. The court disposed of the petition observing that the grant of recognition will not absolve any other applicable laws pertaining to building by-laws or the fire safety requirements.