Bombay HC Orders Pune School to Admit Six-Year-Old Under RTE, Says Child Cannot Always Be Identified By Father’s Caste; Directs Authorities to Accept Mother’s Caste Certificate

Pune/Mumbai, 25th July 2026: Holding that a child cannot, in every case, be identified solely by the caste of the father, the Bombay High Court has directed authorities to grant admission under the Right to Education (RTE) quota to a Pune-based six-year-old after education officials rejected her application because her widowed mother could not produce the deceased father’s caste certificate.

A single bench of Justice N J Jamadar set aside the orders of the taluka-level scrutiny committee, the education officer and the deputy director of education, and directed that Arohee Jadhav be admitted to Aditya English Medium School in Pune under the 25% RTE quota by July 31 without insisting on her late father’s caste certificate.

The court observed that the decisions of the education authorities had “the propensity to deprive the petitioner of the constitutionally guaranteed equality and the child of her fundamental right to have free and compulsory education.”

The petition was filed by Arohee’s mother, Ranjana Jadhav, 35, a domestic worker from the Dhangar community, a nomadic tribe. After her husband died in December 2021, she submitted her own caste certificate while applying for her daughter’s admission. The application was rejected by the scrutiny committee for want of the father’s caste certificate, and the decision was upheld in appeal by the education authorities.

Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Bhushan Raut argued that the denial violated the child’s fundamental right to free and compulsory education and her right to live with dignity free from patriarchal bias.

Accepting the contention, Justice Jamadar noted that where the father is deceased or unable to discharge parental responsibilities, the mother is the child’s natural guardian. “The insistence on the child being recognised, in all circumstances, solely by the caste of her father is not sustainable,” the court said.

The bench further observed: “In a given set of circumstances, where the child suffers from the disadvantages and discriminations, which the mother of the child has suffered, the child may legitimately take the caste of her mother.”

The court also found fault with the approach adopted by the authorities, observing that they had examined the matter from “a very myopic and constricted view” instead of considering the child’s fundamental right to education, particularly when the deceased father’s school records also indicated that he belonged to the Dhangar community.

“The constitutional guarantee of free and compulsory education to children and the substantive equality could not have been sacrificed at the altar of procedural rigidity of production of caste certificate of the father of the child,” the court said.