Education official pulled up for not giving NoC

CHENNAI : The Madras High Court has pulled up the School Education Director for refusing to issue a no objection certificate to a school and imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on him. Justice VK Sharma, who imposed the cost, directed the director to issue the NOC to a school in Kanyakumari district for getting CBSE affiliation.The objection of the School Education Director was a motivated one to harass the school, the judge observed.The Narayana Pillai Memorial Trust, a charitable body, started the English medium school at Chitharai in 1998. The school had classes up to Standard VIII with 360 students. As per the CBSE norms, to conduct classes beyond Standard VII, the school should be affiliated to by the Board. For getting the board’s affiliation, the State Government should issue an NOC. The school’s application seeking the certificate was returned by the authorities pointing out certain defects. The application was resubmitted after some time after removing the defects. It was rejected again by the authorities.The school moved the HC. In June last year, the HC directed the authorities to dispose of the petitioner’s representation. Following this, the application was rejected by officials pointing out certain other defects. Even after rectification, the certificate was not issued, forcing the school to file another writ petition. This was also allowed and the authorities were directed to consider the institution’s compliance report enabling it to get the NOC. The application was rejected again on an imaginary ground that permission granted for constructing the school was only for one year, which should be for an indefinite period.