RTE Section 12(1)(c) & School Inclusion

In January 2026 the Supreme Court seized on one parent's long-pending petition to put teeth into the 25% quota that every private unaided school owes poor and disadvantaged children under Section 12(1)(c) of the Right to Education Act. Describing the reservation as a national mission, the Court noted that no state has fully carried it out and ordered governments to frame enforceable rules so that a child once allotted a seat can no longer be quietly turned away. A largely ignored statutory promise has been converted into a monitored, court-supervised obligation.