2012 only 25 percent of the complaints had been resolved ( _The Economic Times_ 2012b). Although the position has improved considerably since then, concerns about capacity remain.<sup>16</sup> The limited capacities and overburdening of the grievance redress mechanism, combined with the relative ease of access to the courts as a result of the relaxation of rules of standing, has meant that the number of cases at various levels under the right to education in the seven years since the legislation was implemented number in the thousands.<sup>17</sup> For example, one organization—Social Jurists—working largely in Delhi, has filed more than 500 cases under the right to education.<sup>18</sup> A preliminary search of the cases reveals that these cases are primarily lodged at the state High Courts and the Supreme Court because states ratify their own state education laws in keeping with the national Right to Education Act. Because petitions under the Right to Education Act are possible in the civil courts, it is possible to file cases at the lowest levels of the legal system—at the taluka and district levels. But the low levels of awareness of the Right to Education Act by people as well as officials of the Education Department has meant that such cases have not yet been lodged at the lower courts.

What are the cases about? Although most parts of the Right to Education Act have been invoked through legislation, the most cases—and the most contentious—have been about the article guaranteeing 25 percent reservation in private schools for the poorest (section 12 [1] (c)). At the outset this was challenged formally by the association of private schools, but the Supreme Court upheld the law and required the schools to accept poorer students ( _The Hindu_ 2012b). The core of the judgment has been upheld substantively by state courts—for example, in the Gram Vikas Sewa Samiti vs. Govt of Uttar Pradesh, the Allahbad High Court directed the government to formulate policy for the appropriate reimbursement of private schools for accepting such students. Lack of a policy could not be a rationale for rejecting students.<sup>19</sup> It is clear from the public debate that simply mandating a quota does not provide access to quality education for children from poor families. In fact, most of the petitioners bringing cases on the quota issue are the better off among the poor—literate, well connected, and with the resources to pay for initial court costs.<sup>20</sup> There is high opposition to the reservations. Middleclass families do not want their children to mingle with children from poor households. Further, there is the complicated issue of social stigmatization of poor children when placed in a group of rich children. Schools themselves deny admission under the quota on the grounds of nonavailability of seats, or by using sophisticated logic to show why the Act’s provisions are nonapplicable in the case ( _Economic Times_ 2012a). Moreover, the state-provided subsidy for seats under the quota falls well short of the tuition fees that schools charge. The Act does not

> 16 At present, NCPCR has a core strength of three members as against the mandated six, in addition to the chairperson.  NCPCR has a separate Division dedicated to monitoring the Right to Education Act, 2009 under the leadership of Member (Education). This division has a team of 15 officials including Technical Experts and Junior Consultants. SCPCRs are active in 35 states, and the chairperson of the SCPCR is responsible for RTE implementation and dealing with violations.  In 2016-17 they received 392 new complaints related to violations of the RTE Act and dealt with a total of 379 including those of the previous year. 1080 complaints are still pending (Annual Report 2016-17). [These statistics have been revised from those contained in an earlier version of this working paper, thanks to new information provided by NCPCR in 2018.]

> 17 A quick search of the case database—on www.indiankanoon.org—brought up 41,343 cases since 2010 (when the Act was implemented) of which 2,477 were heard in the Supreme Court. It was not possible to do a full analysis of all these cases within the timeframe. But we did identify 24 cases that represented key judgments on the Right to Education Act by locating the most cited cases and interviews with education activists and lawyers. 18 Interview, Social Jurists, Delhi, March 17, 2017.

> 19 See http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/unaided-primary-schools-allahabad-high-court-ordersstate-to-frame-grants-policy/

> 20 Interview, Social Jurists, Delhi, March 17, 2017.

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