Govt order on quota an 'out of hat' exercise:pvt schools to HC

Private unaided schools today told Delhi High Court that the AAP government's decision to scrap certain criteria as well as management quota in nursery admissions was an "out of the hat" exercise.
The schools contended before Justice Manmohan that the government ought to have identified the institutions which have criteria like preference to kids of vegetarians, non- smokers and non-alcoholics and taken action against them, instead of bracketing all private unaided schools together.
"It (Delhi government's decision) is a general circular that brackets 5,000 schools. It is a populist and innocuous move to take power that they do not have," they contended.

Justice Manmohan said some criteria were untenable and asked the schools if they were willing to confine their challenge to only 10-13 criteria out of the 62 scrapped by the government.
The schools will communicate their decision on this aspect to the court tomorrow.
The court also asked Delhi government whether its January 6 order scrapping 62 criteria, including management quota, in nursery admissions was applicable to minority institutions.

During brief arguments, the private schools contended before the court how could there be 2500 admission criteria as claimed by the government.
In response, the government said the figure was arrived at after going through all the criteria uploaded by each of the thousands of private schools.

The court will continue to hear arguments tomorrow.
It was hearing pleas filed by Action Committee Unaided Recognised Private Schools and Forum for Promotion of Quality Education For All challenging government's January 6 order.