Seven days to the RTE contempt deadline new chief on the clock

RAIPUR, May 16 — Chhattisgarh's new School Education Secretary, IAS Kamalpreet Singh, has seven days to file the state's response to a Bilaspur High Court contempt notice on the 14-year freeze on RTE reimbursement rates. The deadline, May 23, falls on his 17th day in the chair.

The contempt was issued on May 2 by Justice P.P. Sahu's single bench, against the office of the school education secretary, for failing to act on a September 19, 2025 order to revisit reimbursement rates last fixed in 2012. The bench gave three weeks. Four days later, on May 6, the state moved IAS Siddharth Komal Pardeshi out of the chair and handed Kamalpreet Singh, a 2002-batch officer, the file.

The current reimbursement is ₹7,000 a year per Class 1-5 student and ₹7,500 per Class 6-8 student. The Bilaspur Private School Management Association, the petitioner, is asking the court to raise these to ₹18,000, ₹22,000 and ₹25,000 across the three slabs and apply the revised rates retroactively for three years. "Every input cost — teacher salary, electricity, books, transport — is two to three times what it was in 2012. Only the state's payment has not moved," association president Rajiv Gupta said in submissions cited by the court. The May 23 response is the second hard date this month for the school education desk. The first was May 7 — a separate Chhattisgarh HC division bench deadline for completing this year's RTE admissions, which the state met operationally by clearing 14,403 admissions on May 1-2 despite the non-cooperation movement.

This is the second time in two years that an RTE-related court case has coincided with a desk change in Mahanadi Bhavan. The state's defence so far has been administrative — an April 25 order capping private school fee hikes at 8 percent and mandating NCERT books for Classes 1-8, and the directorate's separate push to enforce Supreme Court direction that schools cannot deny RTE-allotted admission. School operators in Raipur, Bilaspur and Durg say they expect the state to seek an adjournment.

The court has indicated it will not extend the window further. The case is listed for next hearing on the Bilaspur HC daily cause list, and the second-phase RTE lottery follows on July 14-15.

Source: NPG News (May 2), NWNews24 (May 6), Indianmasterminds.com, Dainik Jagran MPCG.

Related on Inkwelly

For schools tracking RTE compliance:

• Student Information Management — admissions, ID, parent records and 25% RTE seat tracking in one module
• Chronic Absentee Watchlist (RTE 75%) — every student under the RTE attendance floor, surfaced before parent-teacher meetings

For the fee office:

• Student Fee module — collection, receipts, fee committee minutes and approved-fee display

Background reading:

• Configure student admission settings — set the RTE quota, age windows and entry-class rule for your school office

Earlier in this thread:

• Chhattisgarh wants 3 years of fee records from private schools
• Maharashtra widens fee panel oversight to 4 more divisions