Bengaluru: Providing a breather, Justice Anand Byrareddy of the High Court of Karnataka passed an interim order staying the criminal proceedings initiated by the Education Department against the management of National Public School (NPS) and the withdrawal of affiliation by the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) for allegedly forging a certificate.
The petitioners in the case are Citizen Education Society, which runs National Public School at Rajajinagar, National Education Trust, which is managing the NPS schools at Indiranagar, Koramangala and NPS International School at Vijayanagar in Mysuru and National Academy for Learning Trust, which is running two schools at Basaveshwaranagar and HSR Layout.
The HC also issued notice to CBSE, National Council for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) and one Vivekananda, the BEO who filed a complaint against the school with the Vijayanagar police in Mysuru.
The school management in their petition argued that the criminal complaint was lodged against them without even issuing a notice. They also said that the CBSE too did not issue any notice to them before disaffiliating them. The management also contended that they were shocked at NCMEI and its officers for disowning their own signatures.
It may be recalled that on September 2, the CBSE had withdrawn affiliation of five schools in Bengaluru and one school in Mysuru after the schools had allegedly submitted forged minority certificates in order to get exemption from the Right to Education (RTE) Act. An FIR was registered against the school in Mysuru on August 8.
