Nursery admission: HC reserves order, admission to start later

Delhi government today told the High Court that the nursery admission will begin only after an order is passed on the petition of certain unaided private schools challenging the new admission guidelines and terming it as "nationalising the education system".

A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw was told by the counsel for Delhi government that nursery admissions would not begin till the court passes an order on the petition of Action Committee Unaided Recognised Private Schools.

During over three-hour arguments, the government, however, contended nursery admission guidelines issued by the Lieutenant Governor 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."

Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for the Action Committee, said "overnight, the government has restricted the criterion which was in place for seven years, it allotted marks to various criterion. What is left to the school? What are we running the schools for? The government has restricted everything."

"The new guidelines amount to nationalisation of private unaided schools. We have done service to the nation by opening schools, giving good education when government failed in it," he submitted.

The argument made the bench to observe, "If you (Delhi government) take a practical view, the main sectors are education, transportation and health. In all the three, the government has failed.

"You have to accept the reality. See the failure of the state", he added.

Meanwhile, the court of Justice Manmohan granted interim relief to Mount Carmel and Montfort School by staying the operation of certain provisions of nursery admission guidelines concerning minority schools saying they should be treated "differently".