HC reserves order on plea against management quota's scrapping

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on pleas challenging the January 6 circular of AAP government that scrapped 62 criteria, including management quota, for nursery admissions.

Justice Manmohan reserved the order after Delhi government and petitioners, Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools and Forum for Promotion of Quality Education concluded their arguments.

During the hearing, the private unaided schools told the court that out of 62 criteria, there were around 12 criteria, including management quota, they don't want to be scrapped.

On Monday, the court had asked the school to prepare a list of criteria they don't want to be scrapped, advising them to restrict it to a dozen-odd and terming calling some of existing ones "untenable".

The petitioners said the government circular was "absolutely without jurisdiction" and should be quashed as it completely took away the autonomy of schools, but the Delhi government maintained that private unaided schools do not have "absolute autonomy".

It further said that by way of the January 6 notification, it did not prescribe any criteria, but only asked the private schools to adopt criteria which were "fair, just and reasonable".

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on January 6 said the decision to scrap the management quota was taken to bring in more transparency in the admission process. He said the existing provision of 25 percent seats for students from poor families will however remain in place.

Schools were however free to grant admission to children of their employees and could allocate points in their criteria.

Currently, the schools keep 20 percent or even more seats under the management quota, while 25 percent seats are reserved for economically weaker sections students. The remaining are open for the general category children.