Bombay High Court Upholds Rejection Of RTE Admission Over Address Discrepancies
The Bombay High Court in Mumbai on Friday upheld the rejection of a student's admission under the 25 per cent Right to Education (RTE) quota, ruling that the neighborhood residential requirement is an essential eligibility condition.
A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad observed that the residential requirement "is not an empty formality" and cannot be diluted without satisfactory proof. The ruling concerned an admission application for Podar International School in Wagholi, Pune.
The petition was filed by Sandeep Sathe after his son was denied admission to the Wagholi school under the RTE quota. Sathe had claimed that his family had been living in a rented apartment in Kharadi since August 2025. He stated the apartment was around 950 meters from the school, which made his son eligible for admission under the neighborhood criterion.
Sathe challenged the rejection of his online application, contending that the decision was based on an erroneous discrepancy in the address generated through Google Maps.
Following directions from the court, education authorities conducted an inspection of the address and submitted a report. Additional Government Pleader Kedar Dighe informed the court that the premises mentioned in the application was a small room located above a roadside eatery run by the petitioner’s mother. The state argued that this room could not be treated as the family’s actual residence.
Furthermore, the bench noted that the petitioner’s Aadhaar card and voter identity card carried addresses that were different from the one mentioned in the online RTE application.
The bench stated that diluting or overlooking the residential requirement in the absence of satisfactory proof would defeat the objective of the statutory scheme. The judges added that doing so could result in denying admission to another needy child who genuinely satisfies the neighborhood conditions.
Finding no evidence to prove that the Kharadi premises was the family’s ordinary residence, the court dismissed Sathe's petition and upheld the education authorities' decision to reject the admission.
