Another setback for Arvind Kejriwal government

The AAP government suffered another setback on Thursday as the Delhi high court stayed its decision to scrap two more criteria, besides the management quota and 11 other norms, for the nursery admissions in private unaided schools in the national capital.

“Till further order of this court, Criteria 2 and 24 are stayed,” Justice Manmohan said, adding that the main petitions were yet to be heard on merit.

The two criteria stayed on Thursday relate to admissions of children whose parents have inter-state transferable jobs and are government employees.

The court had on February 4 stayed 11 of the 62 other criteria, including those relating to the proven track records of parents, their proficiency in music or sports, their empirical achievements, the gender of the child and whether the kid was the first-born or adopted. Granting interim relief to Sanskriti School which had moved the court seeking quashing of the Delhi government’s January 6 circular, the high court issued notice to the government’s education department and tagged their petition with the pleas filed by the Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools and the Forum for Promotion of Quality Education For All.

The associations have also sought quashing of the decision to scrap management and all other quotas, except for EWS in Delhi’s private unaided schools for the nursery admissions.

The high court also asked the AAP government to file its response by March 14, when it will take up all the matter. The court order came on the plea of Sanskrit School, which through its counsel Ramesh Singh submitted that they do not fit in the 11 criteria, which was already stayed by the court. On February 16, the division bench had also upheld its single judge order staying the AAP government’s decision.

The division bench had concurred with the findings of its single judge’s February 4 interim order, saying the judge was justified in arriving at a prima facie conclusion that the DoE order of January 6 was without the authority of law. The AAP government had approached the division bench against the single judge’s February 4 order.