(Reopens DEL 51)

The court refused to examine the guidelines, issued by the Centre and the DoE. "We need not go into the question as to whether the impugned guidelines issued by government of India ... And the order of government of NCT of Delhi contravene the provisions contained in the RTE Act, in their applicability to admissions made by the private unaided schools to the elementary classes, by permitting categorisation in terms of objectives of the school and applying the criterion, such as sibling, transfer case, single parent and alumni, or not," it said. The bench rejected the plea of Ashok Agarwal, the counsel for NGO, that an "anomalous situation" would emerge as kids would be subjected to screening procedure if RTE Act is not made applicable to nursery admissions. It, however, said the NGO may make a representation to the Delhi's Lt Governor seeking "amendments" in an earlier order of DoE "to rule out any possible misuse of liberty given to the private unaided school" in laying down criterion for admission to pre-primary and nursery classes. The NGO, in its PIL, had challenged the notifications issued by the HRD Ministry and the Delhi government. On November 23, 2010, the ministry had issued guidelines under the RTE Act that had allowed the schools to frame their own admission criteria, the NGO had submitted. Later, the DoE of the Delhi government had also issued similar guidelines, it had said. The PIL alleged the notifications gave free hand to unaided recognised private schools to formulate their own nursery admission criteria based on categorisation of children on the grounds of religion, alumni and sibling despite the same being against the RTE Act.