Supreme Court asks states to provide toilets in schools by 31 March 2012

16 January 2012

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday extended its 31 December 2011 deadline to 31 March 2012 for all states and Union Territories (UT) to provide separate permanent toilets for boys and girls in schools across India, and reiterated that it was an essential part of education rights for children.

A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dipak Misra said empirical studies had shown that parents were reluctant to send their children, especially girls, to school if there was no provision for toilets.

By its 18 October 2011 order, the court had directed states and UTs to provide at least temporary toilet facilities for boys and girls by 30 November and permanent ones by 31 December .

On Friday it found that certain states had made substantial compliance with its order but there were a few glaring ones like Maharashtra, where 13% of schools (or 12,746) did not have any toilet facilities for girls. Moreover, 8% of schools (or 7,509) had no toilet facilities for boys.

The Prithiviraj Chavan government sought six more months to provide permanent toilet facilities in every school. The bench termed this unacceptable and said temporary toilet facility had to be provided by the states, including Maharashtra, in all schools by 28 February 2012 and permanent ones by 31 March.

Amicus curiae and advocate Ravindra Bana said that though Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had claimed that there were separate toilet facilities for boys and girls in all its schools, an NGO had come out with a survey pointing out locked toilets in MCD schools.

The bench asked MCD counsel Sanjiv Sen to inspect the schools and remedy the shortcomings immediately and file an affidavit complying with the apex court's 18 October order.

Bihar, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Arunachal Pradesh got thumbs up from the Supreme Court for over 90% compliance of the order for providing toilet facilities in schools.