Unguided liberty could lead to discrimination: High Court
30 Jan 2013 3:25 PM IST
The Delhi high court on Tuesday said allowing each unaided recognised private school to frame its own nursery admission criteria would be unguided liberty or power to the institution and could result in discrimination among the children.
A bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice V K Jain said this while hearing a public interest litigation by NGO Social Jurist challenging government notifications giving powers to unaided private schools to formulate their own admission criteria.
The bench on Monday had said that its decision on the PIL would also affect nursery class admissions for the academic session 2013-14. The hearing in the case will continue on Wednesday.
NGO Social Jurist has challenged two notifications, issued by the Human Resources Development Ministry and the Directorate of Education of Delhi government, saying that these two notifications have given a totally free hand to all unaided recognised private schools to formulate their own nursery admission criteria based on categorisation of children.
‘You (DoE) cannot dilute the provision of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act.
You are giving preference to one child over another, which is against the Act, by allowing them (schools) to formulate their own admission criteria,’ the court had said.
‘We will have to test the notifications ... and how far such powers can be extended to schools (by the governments under the Act)... If you give liberty to the schools then the whole purpose of the Act would be lost,’ it had said.
According to the petition, the power given to schools to lay down admission criteria was contrary to Section 13 of the Act which says that there would be no screening process of either parents or of kids and no child would be discriminated against.
A bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice V K Jain said this while hearing a public interest litigation by NGO Social Jurist challenging government notifications giving powers to unaided private schools to formulate their own admission criteria.
The bench on Monday had said that its decision on the PIL would also affect nursery class admissions for the academic session 2013-14. The hearing in the case will continue on Wednesday.
NGO Social Jurist has challenged two notifications, issued by the Human Resources Development Ministry and the Directorate of Education of Delhi government, saying that these two notifications have given a totally free hand to all unaided recognised private schools to formulate their own nursery admission criteria based on categorisation of children.
‘You (DoE) cannot dilute the provision of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act.
You are giving preference to one child over another, which is against the Act, by allowing them (schools) to formulate their own admission criteria,’ the court had said.
‘We will have to test the notifications ... and how far such powers can be extended to schools (by the governments under the Act)... If you give liberty to the schools then the whole purpose of the Act would be lost,’ it had said.
According to the petition, the power given to schools to lay down admission criteria was contrary to Section 13 of the Act which says that there would be no screening process of either parents or of kids and no child would be discriminated against.
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