Vibgyor School prevails

There will be no going back to the Vibgyor High School for 13-year-old Adhishree Gopalakrishnan. The Std IX student has been expelled from the prestigious School, located in the Bombay suburb of Goregaon, even though she is admittedly a good student. Her petition before the Bombay High Court stating that she was made to bear the brunt of her mother Avisha’s protests against the School for alleged misappropriation of funds, and should be re-admitted as she had already paid fees amounting to Rs 80,000 in May was dismissed on July 7 by chief justice Mohit Shah who said: "We have held that re-admitting the child to school will not solve the problem. The child has been under stress and the stress will continue for another three-four years (if she is re-admitted),” as reported in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) dated July 8, 2010.

Vibgyor High School: rights of the management

Senior advocate Aspi Chinoy, representing the School trust, informed the Court that the child was enmeshed in a conflict for which she was not responsible. Senior counsel Janak Dwarkadas, speaking for the School, noted: "We have been compelled to take this unfortunate step (of expelling the child),” Advocate for the petitioners, B. K. Subbarao, told the Court that the School and the parents have been litigating since 2007, but it was only now that Adhishree had been expelled. And even though the chief minister, minister for education, the charity commissioner and the education minister had urged the School to take the child back, the Court upheld the right of the management to decide who should be admitted to their School. Since the Court felt that re-admission would not be in the interest of the child, it granted no relief to her, DNA noted.

Earlier, on June 10, the situation had turned ugly when the School was attacked by members of the student wing of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to protest Adhishree’s rustication. The leader of the delegation, Vikrant Rajput, informed the Afternoon Despatch and Courier (ADC) on June 11, 2010, "We have now given a letter to the trustees of the school asking them to give admission... We have given them (a) deadline... if they fail to do so they will have to face bigger protests.” When ADC queried School trustee Rustom Kerawala about whether he would re-admit Adhishree on the basis of this letter, he responded: "We do not succumb to blackmail.”