Nursery admission to go on; HC refuse to stall the process

The Delhi High Court today refused to interfere with the single judge's interim order staying the AAP government's latest nursery admission norms based on the neighbourhood criterion.
Expressing concern that the admission process has already commenced, a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said if the process was stalled, it would lead to an "irreversible" situation.
"Since the issue relates to admission of children in entry level classes, if the notification (neighbourhood as the sole criterion for deciding the admission) is allowed to be acted upon, it would lead to irreversible situation and in case the notification is ultimately quashed, the consequences would be very complex and serious," the bench said.

It said that the implementation of the notification which seeks to regulate the admissions in only 298 schools can await the final result of the writ petitions.
"Hence, we do not find any justifiable reason to interfere with the order under appeal," the bench added.
The division bench was hearing an appeal filed by the AAP government against a single judge's February 14 interim order.

The single judge had stayed the Delhi government's new 2017-2018 nursery admission norm, observing that "a student's educational fatecan't be relegated to only his/her position on a map".
Upholding the decision, the bench headed by Chief Justice, had asked a single judge to dispose of the main writ petitions as expeditiously as possible.

"We also make it clear that the observations/findings in our order as well as the order under appeal being prima facie in nature shall not come in the way of deciding the main writ petitions," it added.
The single judge had ordered an interim stay of January 7 notification till the final disposal of the pleas challenging the Delhi government's order.
In two directives on December 19, 2016 and January 7, the Delhi government had made it compulsory for the 298 private schools built on the Delhi Development Authority land to admit children for nursery who live in that neighbourhood or stay within a certain distance from the school.

Maintaining that the order passed by the single judge was "totally wrong", "erroneous" and "against the law", the AAP government had urged the division bench to stay the operation of the order.