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Row over quota in Sanskriti; SC to pass interim order on Jan 7- 5-Jan-2016

New Delhi: The Supreme Court said that it would pass an interim order on January 7 on various pleas challenging the Delhi High Court decision to set aside the 60 per cent quota in the prestigious Sanskriti School here for wards of group-A government officials.
 
A bench comprising Justices A R Dave and A K Goel also sought assistance of senior advocate Kapil Sibal in deciding the case and appointed him as amicus curiae.  

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre and senior advocate K K Venugopal, who represented the school administration, said that an interim order, allowing the institution to continue with the admission process under the old scheme, be passed till the matter is finally decided by the apex court.
 
While setting aside the 60 per cent quota in Sanskriti School the high court in its November 6 judgement had said that it was "akin to the erstwhile segregation of white and black students in the US and violated constitutional provisions of equality and right to education".
 
The Centre and the School have separately challenged the High Court decision.
 
"It is an unaided private school which provides free  education to students of EWS (economically weaker section) category also without claiming reimbursements and hence, no writ petition was maintainable against it," Venugopal said.
 
In response to query as to what will happen to those seats which will remain vacant after granting admissions to the wards of government employees, Rohatgi said, "no seat remains vacant. If one more school is opened today, the seats will be filled up by the wards of government servants alone in no time".
 
The school sought an urgent interim relief on the ground that the nursery admisison process, under the local law, has already begun on January one and it be also allowed to initiate the process under the old procedures.
 
Sibal, on being asked by the bench, agreed to assist the court as an amicus and said that one of the wards of his relative studies in the school and "nobody should raise it at the later stage."
 
The Attorney General and Venugopal said that they have no objection "whatsoever" on Sibal being apppinted as the amicus curiae in the matter.
The apex court had on December 15 last year agreed to hear the plea challenging the Delhi High Court decision.
 
60 per cent seats in Sanskriti school are reserved for children of Group-A officers, 25 per cent for those from the economically weaker sections, 10 per cent for wards of rest of the society and 5 per cent for the staff of the school.
 
The high court in its judgement had also observed that various expert commissions have said that the current school system in India and abroad promotes and maintains a wide chasm between the advantaged and disadvantaged.
 
The high court had taken suo motu cognizance of the issue in 2006 after reports that the school was charging "nearly 40 per cent less fee from the children of Group-A officers of the Union Government vis-a-vis other children".