Delhi High Court (File)The Delhi government has agreed to take over the debt-ridden Raisina Bengali School in CR Park and has also asked the Comptroller & Auditor General to conduct a financial audit of the institution, according to a submission made before the Delhi High Court.
“The government has given consent to take over the school in the interest of the education of children. The government has also requested the CAG to conduct the audit and after the audit, if it is found that the money has been siphoned off or diverted to somewhere else from the school account, very strict action will be taken against the concerned person or authorities in the management of the school,” said the Delhi government’s standing counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi.
The school had defaulted on a loan taken from a bank. On November 11 last year, the Debt Recovery Tribunal had ordered that the government-aided school would be e-auctioned, a move that would have affected the 900 students enrolled in the institution.
Following this, some students of the school approached the high court in December 2021 to stop the auction. On January 5 this year, the ASREC India Limited – at whose behest the e-auction was being conducted – told the court that it will not disturb the school or its students, keeping in view their academic pursuits, till the end of the academic session on March 31, 2022.
Best of Express Premium
The court had also asked the government to explore the option of taking over the school in accordance with the law and after taking into consideration the ASREC and other affected parties.
Tripathi told The Indian Express that the financial institution that had disbursed the loan to the school agreed to give “25 per cent discount if the government is taking over the institution”.
“There is no time schedule [for the takeover]. The law will take its own course. However, one thing is clear that the school is not going to be closed and the children are safe. The parents need not be bothered about the status of the school. After the takeover, everything will be alright,” he said.
The submission with regard to the government takeover was made before the bench of Justice Yashwant Varma on Thursday in response to a fresh application moved by the students in the case disposed of in January.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
