The agonising wait for nursery admissions for the parents whose children had made it to the merit list in the draw of lots in the Capital’s private schools is over with the Delhi High Court on Thursday giving the go ahead to the school managements to admit them.
Vacating the stay on the admissions, a Division Bench of Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Siddharth Mridul directed the schools to begin the process forthwith and conclude it by April 9.
However, the Bench made it clear that the wards of transferred parents would not be included in this phase of admission process. It said that their case would be considered on April 16, the next date of hearing.
The Bench said that on the next date of hearing, it would decide to which category of students — transferred or wait-listed ones — vacant seats would be allotted after the admission is over.
The Court also directed the Directorate of Education to give the details on the number of vacant seats with the names of the schools after April 9.
It also said that those students who have been chosen in the draw of lots in more than one school will have to choose one of them and if they fail to do it they will not get another opportunity for admissions.
It also clarified that the school managements in the meanwhile would not conduct any fresh draw of lots.
At present, a 95-point system is followed for admissions – 70 points are allocated for neighbourhood, 20 for sibling and five under the alumni category.
The Division Bench had stayed the admission process on a petition by a group of parents whose wards have made it to the cut-off list. They had challenged a Single Bench order for a fresh of draw of lots.
It had said that no admission shall take place at those schools where a fresh draw of lots had been conducted following the Single Bench order for a fresh draw of lots.
The petitioners had argued that for no faults of theirs, they would have to undergo the process once again after their kids were chosen for admissions.
The Single Bench had scrapped the earlier draw of lots and ordered a new one on a petition by another group of parents whose wards had exited from the merit list after the scrapping of the rule for grant of 5 points to them under the head of the transferred category.
