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Pleas in HC against scrapping of quota from pvt schools- 16-Jan-2016

New Delhi: Two petitions were today filed in the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of the AAP government's decision to scrap management and all other quotas except for Economically Weaker Sections in the city's private schools for nursery admissions.
 
One of the pleas was mentioned before a bench of justices B D Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva which listed it for hearing before the appropriate court on January 18.  

The Delhi government in its order issued on January 6 had warned that institutions which violate the direction could be taken over by the education department.  

Seeking stay of operation of the order, a plea by Forum for Promotion of Quality Education For All, said the "order is absolutely without jurisdiction and is thus, liable to be quashed".
 
Advocate Vedanta Varma, for the forum, urged the court that the admission is on, therefore it is necessary for the court to intervene, as it has been passed "without application of mind and is contrary to law".
 
Besides this plea, Action Committee of Unaided Recognized Private Schools, consisting of more than 400 private unaided recognised schools functioning in Delhi, also moved the high court stating that they are also "aggrieved by the absolutely illegal, arbitrary, whimsical and unconstitutional order" issued by Delhi government's Directorate of Education (DoE).
 
Advocate Kamal Gupta for the committee stated in the plea that the order is "without jurisdiction and is contrary to and violative of various judgments passed by the Supreme Court as well as by various benches of the High Court, relating to the autonomy of private unaided schools to
regulate their admissions".

The committee further said that in 1973, Parliament enacted Delhi School Education Act (DSE Act) and also framed Delhi School Education Rules (DSE Rules) thereunder, "thereby recognizing and conferring maximum autonomy upon private unaided recognized schools functioning in Delhi, to regulate their own admissions in a fair and rational manner".
 
"A perusal of the legal provisions shows that admissions to recognized private unaided schools are to be regulated by DSE Rules, which Rules in turn confer the power to regulate admissions upon the head of every unaided school," it added.  

Announcing the decision taken at a meeting of the state's cabinet, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on January 6 had called the management quota the breeding ground for "biggest  scandal" in the education sector in the country and said hisgovernment will not be a "mute spectator" to it.
 
The AAP government had also scrapped 62 "arbitrary and discriminatory" criteria listed by schools on their websites for admissions.
 
However, the 25 per cent quota for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) will stay, the government had said.  

As per the Delhi government, the decision came in the midst of the admission process for nursery classes in over 2,500 private schools in the capital.  

Earlier, the high court, in an order, had asked the Delhi  government not to micro-manage the admission process following which Education Department had allowed the schools to frame their respective criteria and put them on their websites.
 
Kejriwal had said certain criteria put out by the schools were "very shocking" and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution relating to equality before law.