K. RAMA SWAMY, J.

( 1 ) THE Shashikanth Educational Society, a registered Society, was started by Sri S. Tulasidas, a Schedule Caste young Advocate and D. Murali- krishna Public School was established by the said society at Champapet, outskirts of the City, in Rangareddy District and the wife of Sri S. Tulasidas, smt. S. Devaki is the Secretary and Correspondent of the said school.

( 2 ) IT was started in the year 1982 for imparting education with english medium to the children belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled tribe, for short dalits , living in Champapet village. They are either rickshaw pullers or daily wage earners. The petitioner-Institution claims to be having 122 children and in the year 1983-84 by proceedings of the Regional joint Director of School Educacation, Hyderabad, dated March 19, recognition was granted for Classes I and II. In fact, the institution is running the school at present with Classes I to IV and L. KG. and U. KG. The petitioner made a request for the recognition of the said school, Instead of recognising it, a show cause notice dated February 27, 1985 was issued to the petitioner- institution calling upon it why the temporary recognition granted should not be withdrawn. Assailing the legality and jurisdiction to issue the said show cause notice, the present Writ Petition has been filed seeking Writ of Mandamus to declare the show cause notice dated February 27, 1985 as null and void and without jurisdiction and to direct the first respondent to grant recognition.

( 3 ) COUNTER-AFFIDAVIT has been filed by the respondents stating that the petitioner has been collecting tuition fees at the rate of Rs. 20/- per student and it is not being accounted for; that a complaint was lodged and pursuant thereto the Police have seized all the record; that a joint inspection was sought to be made by the Deputy Director of Social Welfare and the District educational Officer but they were prevented to make the Inspection raising slogans to withdraw the G. O. issued by the Government and so it became impossible for them to make inspection; that the petitioner has not been maintaining any regular registers or accounts of the amounts drawn; and that a sum of Rs. 28,560-00 was released towards tution fees for 119 students for the year 1983-84 for two terms. Since the petitioner has not complied with the conditions imposed in G. O. Ms. No. 181 dated May 15, 1984 for according recognition, sanction of re-imbursement of tution fee cannot be granted and recognition cannot be granted.

( 4 ) THE respondents filed an application for vacating the stay and it came up on December 28, 1985. At that time after going through the allegations made in the counter-affidavit, I appointed Sri G. Bikshapathy, advocate of this Bar, as Commissioner to make personalinspection of the school, record statements of the parents, inspect the school records and then submit a report. Accordingly Sri G. Bikshapathy has filed his report on january 22, 1986. In the report, the learned Commissioner has stated that the school is situated in Harijanawada, that the mothers of the children were sent. He examined them at the school. At the time of his inspection, he found 167 students including 67 students in L. KG and U. KG in the school, that there are four teachers including a Headmistress, that one Aya was engaged to bring the children to the school, that there are 27, 28, 20 and 24 children respectively in Classes I to IV, that it is an English medium school and that all the parents of the children are either rikshaw pullers or daily wages coolies. The parents have stated that Sri S. Tulasidas or Smt. Devaki are not collecting any tuition fees from them that the institution is being run by collecting donations from philanthropists, that for want of funds salaries were not paid to the teachers and that progress cards of the studends are also maintained by the school He further stated in his report that he also inspected the records seized by CB. C. id. From an overall assessment of the situation he opined that the Institution is making its efforts to impart education to the students who are economically and socially backward, that the institution has no financial backing either from the Government or from other sources; that the institution is imparting free education to all the students. Unless salaries are paid to the teachers it is difficult to maintain the institution and that the delayed payments of the salaries for lack of funds would be a great hurdle for the smooth running of the institution. The evidence thus collected by the learned Commissioner inspires me to accept as the factual situation prevailing in the hamlet and the school, from these facts it is clear that the petitioner has established the institution with Classes I to IV together with l. KG and U. KG and that the total students are 167 with four teachers including the Headmistress and an Ava. The question is whether a mandamus can be issued directing the respondents to accord recognition and consequential reimbursement of the tution fees and the salaries to the teachers. Section 20 of the A. P. Education Act (Act 1 of 1982), for short the act , provides that no private institution shall, after the commencement of this Act, be established except in accordance with the provisions, of this Act or the Rules made thereunder. Under sub-section (3) while granting permission under sub-section (2), the authority concerned shall have due regard to the following matters, namely :-- (a) that there is "need for providing educational facilities to the people in the locality" ; (b) that there is adequate financial provision for continued and efficient maintenance of the institution as prescribed by the competent authority ; (c) that the institution is proposed to be located in sanitary and healthy surroundings; (d) that the site for building, play ground and garden proposed to be provided and the building in which the institution is proposed to be housed, conforms to the rules prescribed therefor ; (e) that the teaching staff qualified according to rules made by the Government in this behalf is appointed. In pursuance therefore, the Government have issued g. O. Ms; No. 181, dated May 15, 1984. In that G. O. it is stated that (1) the reputed school should be an educational institution having high standards of education ; good reputation for discipline and other extra curricular and co-curricular activities ; (2) that the school should have at least five years standing-with usual recognition by the District Educational Officer/director of School Education and it should have a managing committee ; (3) that the school should have adequte facilities, viz. , play ground. laboratory, library, audio-visnal equipment, furniture and equipment for the class rooms and laboratories with sufficient accommodation for school and other curricular, co-curricular and extra curricular activities ; (4) that the school should have adequate number of qualified teaching staff; (5) that the admission of scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Classes students should be in accordance with the orders of Government and the orders issued by the Director of School Education and Director of Social Welfare, from time to time ; (6) that the institution should have record of good results of not less than 90% passes every year in all classes other than VII and X classed and in the VII and X class Public Examinations the results should be at least 75% continuously during the last 5 years ; (7) that such institutions fulfilling the above requirements would be recognised by the Director of Social Welfare as a reputed school or convent in addition to the normal recognition of the school by the Director of School Education/district Educational Officer and this recognition would be renewed year after year, basing on the fulfilment of the conditions laiddown; (8) that only those institutions which are enlisted by the Director of Social Welfare as reputed schools and convents would be eligible for re-imbursement of tution fee ; (9) that the rate of re-imbursement of tution fee would be as prescribed by Government, from time to time, (10) that ,the payment of reimbursement of tution fee would be on the basis of attendance of the student concerned and 75% of the attendance would be compulsory for re-imbursement of tution fee ; (11) that the reimbursement of tuition fee would be sanctioned by District Collector; (12) that the reputed institutions should be inspected by the Deputy Director, Social Welfare or district Educational Officer or Gazetted Inspector of Schools and the sanction or reimbursement of tution fee would be based on the reports of these officers regarding attendance and other conditions in the school concerned and (13) that the institutions, which desire to apply for re-imbursement of tution fee, should send a report regarding results and fulfilment of other conditions to the Director of Social Welfare immediately after the annual results are published well in advance, so that action can be taken for enlistment and such enlistment can be done based on the reports from the Deputy Director of social Welfare or the District Educational Officer with the specific recommendation of, the District Collector.

( 5 ) THIS is an institution established in Harijanawada by an educated advocate and he is imparting free education to the students of Harijanawada without collecting any fees from them. Therefore, it is intended not as a profession or for his gain, but it is motivated with a view to make the Dalit children as useful citizens. The fact that 167 students are studying in the school itself shows that there is absolute need for imparting education in the locality. The question is, what is the meaning of the phrase, "the need for providing educational facilities to the people in the locality", in Section. 20 (3) (a) ? Admittedly the people in the locality are the Dalits, rikshaw pullers and daily wage earners. The shool going children are 167 in number. Art. 45. of the Constitution enjoints the State to provide compulsory free education.

( 6 ) ARTICLE 46 mandates the State of promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the Dalits and to protect them from social injustice. Despite abolition of untouchability under Article 17 and prohibiting its practice in any from to be an offence, and the Civil Rights protection Act providing rigorous punishment, the practice thereof is being perpetrated remorsely unabted. The Dalits are in abject poverty with subhuman conditions. The preamble of Constitution assures social and economic justice with right to equality of opportunity and of status with dignity of person. Article 14 provides right to equality and Article 19 provides seven fundamental rights. to Art. 15 (4) assures right to education. For the poor, the ignorant and inarticulate, they can never take advantage of them. To them life is one long unbroken journey in destitution. Notions of individual freedom and liberty and of dignity of person, the most cherished values of the free society would sound as empty words bandied about only in the drawing rooms of the rich and well to do. In the language of Mathew, J in Kesavananda bharathi vs. State of Kerala the fundamental rights themselves have no fixed content, most of them are mere empty vessels into which each generation must pour its contents in the light of its experience. Article 29 (2) assures that no citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them. Article 15 (4) provides equality of admission in the educational institutions to the dalits bydirecting the State to make special provision for the advancement of their social and aducational backwardness,

( 7 ) EDUCATION is the very foundation of good citizanship and a principal instrument to awaken the child to cultural values in preparing the child for later professional training and in helping him to adjust to the environment. Thereby education nourishes intellectual advancement to develop dignity of person without which there is neither intellectual cxcellance nor pursuit of happiness. In Proposed Tody Tappers Co-operative Society, Nizamabad vs. The Commissioner of Excise I had an oceasion to hold in the context of right to form a society by the Backward Class (Tody Tappers) that "the fundamantal rights in Part II are not an end in themselves but are the means to be end. The end is specified in Part IV The promise held forth by the preamble is to usher in an egalitarian society through the discipline of fundamental rights. The attempt, therefore, of the courts in interpreting the provisions of the Constitution would be in a liberal way to exapand the reach and ambit of the fundamental right so as to subserve the purpose for which the Constitution makers intended for. "the right to equality and of status is the fundamental right and is the faith and cread of the Constitution. The executive has to take action to make these rights meaningful to them.

( 8 ) IN Bhuwaneswar Rao vs. The Principal, Osmania Medical College, hyderabad3 I have held that the Dalits have fundamental right to equality of opportunity and status in an unequal society. Social justice in establishing egalitarian society is the creed of the Constitution and distributive justice is a fact thereof. The benign equailitarian guarantee is an intgral facet of equal justice under Article 14 of the Constitution.

( 9 ) THE Hindu social structure is based on caste and communities which create walls and barriers of exclusiveness and proceeded on the basis of considerations of superiority and inferiority. Thereby it created social inequality resulting in reprehensible forms of untouchability, etc. , denuding the backward Classes and Dalits of equality of status and opportunity. Equality implies fundamentally certain levelling process. It means that no man shall be so placed in the society that he can overreach his neighbour to that extent it constitutes a denial of the latter s citizenship. Equality means adequate opportunities laid open to all. By adequate opportunities, we cannot imply equal opportunity in the formal sense viz. , identity of formal opportunity. The native endowments of men are by no means equal. Children, who are brought up in an atmosphere where the things of the mind are accounted highly are bound to start the race of life with advantages. Apparently, it would inevitably effect profoundly the equality of the children whom it touches. Without education, a man is so circumstanced that he knows not how to make the best of himself. Therefore, for him the purpose of society is abinitio, furstrated. When citizens are in that volnerable ignor- ence and squalor, they know not themselves how they make use of their opportunities and the opportunities, a mockery and the fundamental rights are teasing illusions. The principles of equality in reality alone would be an advantitious aid to fundamental equality. Equality, therefore, involves upto the margin of sufficiency, identity of response to primary needs and that is what is meant by justice. We are rendering to each man his own by giving him what enables him to be a man. Obviously, Article 46 of the Constitution when it charges the State to promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, intended to operate in the above area affording adequate opportunity in the matter of education to the children of the weaker sections of the society with a view to rid them off apathy for education and be a useful citizen. Article 15 (4) (1953) 347 U. S 48398 Lawyers Edition P. 873 at 880 guarantees to them equality in reality in the matter of admission into educational institutions. Thereby the Constitution is protecting the weak and limiting the general power of the society as profounded by Herald Laski in his Grammer of Politics, 1979, Indian Reprint, page 160, that;"we so act because the common welfare includes the welfare of the weak as well as the strong. . . . To act otherwise is to regard them not as persons but as instruments. It is to deny that their personality constitutes a claim. It is deliberately to weigh institutions against a section of community".

( 10 ) IN view of Article 45 of the Constitution, it is the duty of the state of impart compulsory education to the children in the egalitarian socialist society with secularism as its goal. In Brown vs. Board of Education 94) Warren, Chief Justice, has held that ;"education is the most important function of State and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. To-day it is a principal instrument in avakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment, In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of education. Such an opportunity, where the State has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms".

( 11 ) THUS I have no hesitation to hold that right to education to the dalits is a fundamental right and it is the mandatory duty of the State to provide adequate opportunities to advance their economic and educational interest by establishing schools. Therefore, under Section 29 (3) (a) the need of the locality is a constitutional need and it is the duty of the authority thereunder. It is the duty of the State to establish schools in the area of dalits in the absence of common schools to all sections of the society. In its absence, when a private school is established, it is the mandate of the Constitution to accord permission for such a school.

( 12 ) THE next question is whether the conditions prescribed in G. O. Ms. No. 181 dated May 15,1984 have been fulfilled? It is common knowledge that the Dalitsthe rickshaw pullers and the daily wage earners live in abject poverty ; their houses are not palaces but huts with either some semiconstructed ones or with some leaves or rags spread over the top with two bamboos as supporting poles erected with no sanitary conditionslet alons protected drinking water.

( 13 ) UNDER those circumstances, the question is whether the compliance of the rigour adumbrated in G. O. Ms. No. 181 could be possible or feasible? The conditions have already been extracted and they need no reiteration. When a school is established in such a locality, it is well nigh impossible to comply with all or any of the conditions prescribed therein. If the compliance thereof is insisted upon as pre-condition to accord recognition to the school established in Harijana wada, it is nothing but the officers saying "you Dalits are not entitled to a school since you can never comply with our conditions though you are in dire need of education and constitution gives you such a right" and charge us to implimsnt it. Consequently no school can be established in such a locality and no occasion would arise to impart education to them though it is a constitutional nesd and it is the duty of the State to establish such an institution. If such high educational standards as envisaged in the rules are insisted upon and the economic sufficiency and stability for establishing the school is insisted and five years of existence with out aid is called upon to survive with consistent high percentage of passes, practically no school can be established in any area of the Dalits. The necessary conclusion is that the officials are oblivious of not only the historical but also the existing facts and thereoy they abdicated their constitutional duty enjoined under Article 46 of the Constitution. Undoubtedly, the Legislature cannot foresee all the eventualities except to lay down broad guidelines in Section 20 and so relegated to the subordinate legislation to make rules to enforce the law. When the rules are made in turn generally in implementation therefore, the authorities should be realistic and pragmatic to the situation and in appropriate cases they should tailor their actions to relax them so as to subserve the purpose of the Constitution and the Act. Rules are not sacrosanet and immutable. Instead of so doing, the respondents have taken recourse to cancel the temporary permission to Classes I and II by issuing show cause notice to annihilate the very institution started and being run by an young Advocate who has no firm rcots in the profession but animated to educate the children of his compatriots by collecting donations from the munficent philantorpists. When seen from this angle the complaint to police appears to emanate from behind smoke screen, as motivated, From a conspectus of the above consideration, I am constrained to hold that the authorities have derilicted their constitutional and statutory duties under section 20 of the Act. Accordingly the show cause notice is quashed and there shall be a direction to the respondents to recognise the institution of the petitioner from L. KG to Class V and grant the entire amounts due as per rules within six weeks from the date of receipt of this order. The respondents are also directed to secure as expenditiously as possible adequate site for construction of a permanent school nearer to locality and the 3rd respondent is directed to provide necessary funds for its construction and other amenities.

( 14 ) THE Writ Petition is accordingly allowed with costs. Advocate s fee Rs. 150/ -.