Right to education is non-negotiable. It shouldn't depend on Centre-state relations

Indian Express

19-06-2025

Written by Mayuri Gupta
In a quiet yet telling move, last month Tamil Nadu moved the Supreme Court against the Centre for freezing educational funds. The Centre informed the Rajya Sabha during the 2025 Budget session that it allocated no funds to Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and West Bengal under the Centre's share for the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan for 2024–25. These states are not underperformers; rather, they have been long recognised for their robust education systems. Notably, this freeze isn't a clerical error or a mere budgetary oversight. It reflects a worrying trend of politicised fiscal federalism, one that not only threatens the constitutional promise of equality and cooperative governance but also strikes at the heart of the fundamental right to education.
At the heart of this federal standoff is the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) that play a pivotal (and sometimes outsized) role in governance. They are conditional grants under the Constitution that are unilaterally designed and partially funded by the Centre and implemented by the state governments. The disbursal of the Centre's share under the CSS depends on certain conditions and is tied to a set of procedural and compliance-related requirements. For instance, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan is an umbrella scheme for school education under the Ministry of Education. It integrates three CSS: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE) aimed at equitable quality school education across India — from pre-school to senior secondary level — while also supporting teacher-training and system strengthening. The fund-sharing ratio between the Centre and the states (other than NE states) is 60:40.
In the absence of transparency and uniform enforcement, CSS risks becoming a tool of fiscal coercion in the hands of the Centre rather than an instrument to further cooperative governance. This undermines the spirit of federalism. This is because, CSS funding framework is not governed by a dedicated statute, but by executive guidelines under Article 282 of the Constitution. Article 282 enables the Union as well as the states to make discretionary grants, even beyond their respective legislative competences, for any 'public purpose'. Although Article 282 was never intended to be a regular route for fiscal transfers from the Union to the states, over the years, several 'one-size-fits-all' discretionary schemes have allowed the Centre's control over matters beyond its legislative competence. This hampers the autonomy of states and, at times, leads to inefficient overlaps. For instance, the Centre has linked the release of funds for Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan to the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the PM SHRI Schools scheme by the states, which TN, West Bengal and Kerala are opposing. This has halted admissions for the academic year 2025-26 under the Right to Education Act in Tamil Nadu, illustrating how CSS, with their strict conditions and lack of flexibility, can hamper state capacity.
When CSS are used as a political tool rather than a policy instrument, the foundational ideals of cooperative federalism begin to erode, with the poorest, and in this case, the children, paying the price. Right to education is guaranteed in Article 21A of the Constitution, which makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right for all children between 6 to 14 years of age. However, the realisation of the right to education depends on cooperative federalism as education comes under the Concurrent list. Yet, the top-down approach towards education through CSS can risk transforming a fundamental right into a bargaining chip, contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.
As there is no clear constitutional or statutory framework governing the design and implementation of CSS, the ongoing standoff between TN and the Centre presents an important opportunity for the Supreme Court to examine whether certain rights-based entitlements (such as the fundamental right to education) should be protected from coercive tactics by one tier of government against another. When the implementation of the Right to Education is routed through other schemes, it risks making access to fundamental rights contingent upon political alignments between the governments. This weakens both the principle of cooperative federalism and the fundamental right to education.
The current stand-off raises a deeper constitutional question: Can access to fundamental rights be made conditional on political conformity in a federal democracy? The Constitution does not permit a framework where executive discretion or ideological conformity dictates the enforcement of rights that are meant to be universal and inalienable. The current case offers the SC a rare opportunity to answer the above question by revisiting its interpretation of Article 282 and drawing clear constitutional limits on the use of CSS, to restore balance in Centre-State relations and ensure that fundamental rights remain non-negotiable.
The writer is Milon K Banerji, Senior Resident Fellow at Charkha, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy