‘TN spends much for education than Union govt’

CHENNAI: DMK’s Thousand Lights MLA Dr. Ezhilan Naganathan on Monday submitted before the Madras High Court that the State government is allocating more funds for education than the Union government.

Senior Advocate NR Elango representing the DMK legislator made this submission before the full bench of Madras High Court comprising Justice R Mahadevan, Justice M Sundar, and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy.

The petitioner sought direction from the court to quash the move of the Union government to shift education from the State list to the concurrent list.

According to the senior lawyer, when there was an emergency in the nation, the Union government brought an amendment to Article 42 of the Constitution of India shifting education from List II to List III.

“The move of the union government affects the State autonomy and federal structure of the country. The State governments are allocating a huge sum of budget for the education department than the union government. Therefore, it is important that the State should hold the education subject,” the DMK Rajya Sabha MP argued.

He further noted that though there was a Bill moved in the parliament to revert education to the state subject, it was defeated in the Rajya Sabha.

As the arguments are yet to complete, the matter has been posted for further arguments on Tuesday.