Delhi High Court on Tuesday pronounced its verdict on several pleas challenging the AAP government’s directive to private unaided schools to accept nursery admission forms based only on the neighbourhood or distance criteria. The court on Tuesday stayed the Directorate Of Education’s nursery admissions notification forcing 298 private schools to adopt only neighbourhood criteria, while terming it as ‘unreasonable’. Justice Manmohan termed the January 7 notification as “arbitrary and discriminatory” and ordered to put a stay on the guidelines for nursery admissions for the academic session 2017-18 in Delhi schools.
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The notifications by the Department of Education have made “distance” the primary criterion for admission of tiny tots. The court in its remark blamed the lack of good schools in the national capital as the primary cause of nursery admissions chaos. The court’s judgment came on petitions filed by two school bodies and a couple of parents to challenge the guidelines.
Justice Manmohan had on February 9 reserved judgement on a batch of petitions filed by parents and two school groups against the Delhi government’s December 19, 2016 and January 7 notifications that made 298 private schools, built on Delhi Development Authority (DDA) land, to accept nursery admission forms based only on the neighbourhood or distance norm. The court by way of an earlier interim order had allowed the parents to fill up the application forms for the various schools based on the criteria set by them as well as the Delhi government. So today’s order came as a relief to around 15 minority schools in Delhi that were set up on public land.
(With inputs from PTI)