Bombay High Court judge offers to pay school fees of widow’s son

Justice Vidyasagar Kanade of the Bombay high court on Friday offered to pay the school fees of a child when his widowed mother approached the court for assistance.

Rita Kanojia, a Chembur resident, had recently approached the court as she could not pay for her son’s admission to Junior KG. The Tilak Nagar Educational Society had refused to grant her son admission unless she paid an exorbitant building development fee. The school had demanded Rs 30,000 from anyone who sought admission, out of which, Rs 19,500 was demanded for development of the school building while the remaining Rs 10,500 was the child’s annual fee.

Ms Kanojia told the court that since she had an economically weak background, she should be exempted from paying the fee. The court via an order of June 9 had directed the school to exempt her from paying the building development fees and to admit her son Kartik on the payment of only the term fees.

Ms Kanojia, who is a washerwoman by profession, belongs to the lowest strata of society and has at points lived in the dark, as she couldn’t pay her electricity bill due to economic distress, Pranay Wagh, her lawyer, told The Asian Age. “As a society we should be sympathetic towards those in need and should help them,” he said.

Despite the exemption, she found it difficult to pay the fees due to economical distress and in a letter to her lawyer had requested the school to give her a concession as she belongs to the SC caste and to let her pay the fees in instalments.

In his submission, Ms Kanojia’slawyer told the high court that not only did the school refuse her request, the authorities had also asked the school’s security guards not to allow the child entry until she paid the fees.

Justice Kanade, while giving the order asked the school to be sympathetic and offered to pay the child’s school fee on her behalf. The school authorities then decided to let the child be admitted and allow her to pay the fees whenever possible.