Tamil Nadu moves Supreme Court against Centre for withholding education funds

The Tamil Nadu government has filed a petition in the Supreme Court, accusing the Centre of stopping the state’s annual share of education funds to the tune of Rs 2.21 crores under the Samagara Siksha Abhigyan (SSA) scheme over the non-implementation of NEP 2020 and the three-language policy. The state in its petition has accused the Centre of using financial pressure to get the state to implement NEP and set up the PM Shri schools. 

 

In its suit filed under Article 131 of the Constitution, the DMK-led government has sought a direction to the central government to release the funds due to the state. The state has sought a principal sum of Rs 2,151.59 crores and a six per cent interest on it, from May 1 until the realisation of the decree, totalling Rs 2,291.30 crore. Under Article 131, the Constitution allows the state government to legally challenge the Centre in disputes.

 

The original suit represented by DMK’s Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocates P. Wilson and Apoorv Malhotra contended that the state’s vociferous opposition to NEP 2020 and not setting up the PM Shri schools was the “glaring and apparent reason” for the non-disbursement of funds to the state under SSA. The PM Shir schools mandates the implementation of the NEP 2020 in its entirety in the state, which, according to the state government, is a different subject. 

 

“The Centre by withholding the plaintiff’s entitlement to receive funds under the SSA is an ignorance of the doctrine of cooperative federalism. The usurpation of the constitutional power of the plaintiff state to legislate under Entry 25, List III seeks to coerce and force the plaintiff state to implement NEP 2020 throughout the state in its entirety and to deviate from the education regime followed in the plaintiff state,” says the petition. The petition also called the central government’s refusal to disburse funds as “unilateral” and a “blatant diktat” pressurising the states to implement the PM Shri schools under SSA.

 

The petition further said that disbursing Rs 2151.39 crores towards the SSA in Tamil Nadu for the year 2025-2026 is obligatory on the part of the Centre under the SSA scheme as it has been approved by the project approval board. The board had actually approved R 3585.99 crores to the state under SSA, says the petition. “The non disbursal has gravely hit the SSA and the implementation of the RTE Act, 2009,” it added. It also said that the lack of funds has affected 43.94 lakh students and 2.21 lakh teachers apart from 32,701 staff members working in the school education department. 

 

Apart from seeking direction to the Centre to disburse the funds the state has also sought a judicial declaration that NEP 2020 and PM Shri schools should not be binding on Tamil Nadu, urging the court to declare this binding as “unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary and unreasonable.” 

 

The petition is the first step of the state’s legal fight against the Centre with regard to the SSA funds. Stalin had earlier written letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to delink NEP 2020 and SSA and the setting up of PM Shri model schools. The state government has been vociferous against the NEP 2020 and the three-language policy. 

India