Justice Manmohan of the Delhi High Court, disposing of the writ petitions moved by the groups representing the schools and parents, set aside the Lieutenant Governor’s previous guidelines issued in this regard and held that the administrative autonomy of schools could not be restricted by official orders and upheld the Ganguly Committee’s recommendations and allowed private unaided schools to set their own guidelines for nursery admissions and evolve point systems to suit their requirements.
The notification issued by the Lieutenant Governor had created a 100 point system for nursery admission of general category students and done away with the management quota.
Court said that, private unaided schools should have administrative autonomy to decide on admissions. Also it was observed that, the “Administrative autonomy of private unaided schools cannot be restrained by way of office orders“. The high court also said the power to decide the school of a child should lie with the parents. “Position on map cannot decide which school a child should go to,” it added.
It was also observed that the practice of administering the process of school admissions through circulars, notifications and office orders creates uncertainty and added that consistency; certainty and incorporation of popular will could only be done by the Legislature revisiting the issue of nursery admissions.
Court, earlier restrained the Delhi government from issuing fresh notification for nursery admissions for the next academic session, said the children should have the option to go to a neighbourhood school, but their choice could not be restricted to a school situated in their locality.
However, while reserving his verdict, Justice Manmohan had also restrained Delhi government from issuing fresh notification for nursery admission for the upcoming academic year in the national capital on a plea challenging last year’s guidelines.
The verdict has come as a major relief for private unaided schools, as it will be applicable to the admissions for the year 2015-16.