Private schools challenge nursery admission rules

Committee — a group of 450 private unaided schools—onWednesdayknocked on the doors of the Delhi High Court to challenge the Delhi government’s recently released admission guidelines.

The government had recently issued a notification directing private schools on DDA land to admit toddlers only on the basis of neighbourhood or distance criteria.

One of the major problems that the private schools have with the new guidelines is that they can no longer deny admission to anyone who seek admission within their neighbourhood.

The government’s January 7 notification said these private schools cannot “refuse admission to the residents of the locality” and fill 75 per cent of the capacity. The remaining25%seatsaremandatorily reserved for children whose parents’ annual income is less than ₹1 lakh a year.

The notification gave priority to students living within a radius of one kilometre. In case seats remainvacant,thoselivingwithin a distance of 3km will get a chance.

There are 1,400 private unaided schools in the Capital and 298 of them are built on land allotted by the DDA.

Action committee has challengedthenotificationcontending stating it to be “illegal, arbitrary, whimsical and unconstitutional”.

It contended that the terms of allotment was superseded by the lease deeds subsequently executed and registered by the land owning agencies in favour of the private educational societies.

“The lease deeds subsequently executed… do not contain any such restriction of making admissions from the locality of the school only,” the petition filed by action committee through advocate Kamal Gupta said.

It said the notification was “clearly violative” of the school’s fundamental right to establish and administer with maximum autonomy, including the right to admit students from everywhere.

The petition is coming up for hearing on Thursday.