Delhi HC stays government’s nursery admission guidelines

NEW DELHI: Terming it as “unreasonable”, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday stayed the Arvind Kejriwalled government’s nursery admissions notification compelling 298 private schools, built on public land, to adopt only neighbourhood criteria.

The January 7 notification was “arbitrary and discriminatory”, said Justice Manmohan while ordering a stay on the guidelines for nursery admissions in the national capital for the 2017-18 academic session.

The notification issued by the Department of Education of Delhi government had made “distance” the primary criterion for admission of tiny tots.

The court questioned the Delhi government’s decision to impose the neighbourhood restriction to only those schools that are built on Delhi Development Authority land.

“Public interest cannot be confined to 298 schools,” said the court.

“After all, children are uniformly affected by alleged factors of public interest and it cannot be said that public interest is to be served only in the case of children going to 298 and not to the other 1,400-odd schools,” the court said.

The notification accorded priority to students living within a radius of one km from the school concerned.

In case the seats remain vacant, those living within a distance of 3 km will get the chance for admission.

There are 1,400 private unaided schools in the capital, of which 298 are built on land allotted by the DDA.

The court said the notification completely takes away from the private unaided schools “the right to admit students and the right to lay down a fair, reasonable, transparent and nonexploitative procedure/criteria for admissions, leaving them with no say in their admissions whatsoever”.

Restricting admissions to immediate neighbourhood of the school “may result in restricting the growth and vision of the students”, the court opined.