NEW DELHI, Feb 4: The Delhi High Court today preponed hearing on the petitions of unaided private schools challenging the new nursery admission guidelines issued by the Lt Governor by which various decisions including scrapping of 20 per cent management quota were taken.
“In view of the Supreme Court directions issued on January 31, list the matter for hearing on February 25 instead of March 11,” Justice Manmohan said.
The court said it will accord a day-to-day hearing of the petitions from the next date and asked the lawyers for Delhi Government, Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools and Forum for Promotion of Quality Education for All to be ready with their submissions.
The bodies representing unaided private schools had first moved a single judge bench of the high court seeking setting aside of the nursery admission guidelines 2014-15 and had also demanded an interim relief of staying the norms fixed by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung through the notifications issued on December 18 and December 27 respectively.
The schools filed an intra-court appeal before a larger bench after Justice Manmohan had refused to stay the guidelines.
Later, the schools went up to the Supreme Court as the division bench of the high court also denied them the relief sought and concurred with the findings of the single judge on the issue.
The Supreme Court also did not grant any relief to the private schools. It, however, asked the Delhi High Court to expedite the hearing on the pending petitions.
The division bench of the high court had dismissed the schools’ plea for interim stay, saying that any interference will prove “detrimental” to the interests of children.
“We, therefore, are of the view that the appellants have not been able to satisfy us of any irreparable loss and injury to them from the non-grant of the interim order sought.
“We are further in agreement with the learned single judge that any interference at this stage would create confusion and would be detrimental to the interests of children as well as parents of the wards who are seeking admission,” the high court had said.
The guidelines outlined criteria including the neighbourhood criteria, which seeks schools to give preference to children living within a radius of 6 km from school, has been given maximum weightage with 70 points out of 100 in open category seats. Later, the LG enhanced the criteria to 8 km.
Besides these, the applicants who have sibling studying in the same school will get 20 points and five points will be added by default in the application of girls and wards of school alumni.
The guidelines also seek the minority schools to have 25 per cent seats reserved, like other schools, for economically weaker sections and disadvantaged groups of society.
The plea has sought setting aside of the 2014-15 guidelines on the ground that the LG office lacked the power to frame them.
It had claimed the guidelines were against the principle of autonomy and the recognised unaided private schools were given the power by the Central Government to formulate their own admission criteria for 75 per cent seats.
Central Government, the Directorate of Education (DoE) and the office of LG were made party in the plea.
The Government had termed it as “nationalising the education system” and had contended that nursery admission guidelines issued by the LG giving 70 marks to neighbourhood kids and abolishing 20 per cent management quota is “against elitism and is a carefully considered decision passed after a reasonable gap of seven years and deserves to be given a fair chance.” (PTI)
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