‘Can’t keep admissions pending indefinitely’

The Delhi high court on Monday told the Sanskriti School here that it cannot keep its admission process pending “indefinitely” on the ground that its plea against quashing of 60 per cent quota for wards of group-A government officials was pending in the Supreme Court.

“You have to comply with the circulars of department of education (DoE). You can’t keep it pending indefinitely,” Justice Manmohan told the lawyer appearing for the school.

However, the court did not issue any directions on those lines and adjourned the matter to January 20, as the school’s special leave petition against high court's November 6, 2015, order scrapping its 60 per cent quota is listed for hearing in the apex court on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Delhi government’s additional standing counsel Gautam Narayan told the court there cannot be any such quota and “it has to go”. Mr Narayan also said the school cannot have its way and refuse to put up the nursery admission criteria for academic session 2016-17 on their website.

He said the school should comply with DoE’s circulars of December 8, 2015 and December 22, 2015 which mandate that the admission process should commence from January 1 and fix the last date for application as January 22.

The January 6 order asks schools “to develop and adopt criteria for admissions to the 75 per cent open seats to entry level classes for session 2016-17 which shall be well defined, non-discriminatory, unambiguous and transparent”. “However, respondent no. 4 (Sanskriti) in sheer defiance of the circulars has not uploaded the admission criteria and points for admissions of open seats at entry level classes for the academic session 2016-17,” a petition filed by a toddler’s father, advocate Dheeraj Singh, has said.