The High Court on Tuesday ordered that children from families with an annual income less than ₹2.5 lakh will be eligible for admission to schools under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category.
The order was issued by the Bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora.
The court modified a December 5, 2023, judgment of a single-judge Bench that had asked the Delhi government to increase the income threshold for admissions under the EWS category from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh.
It also stayed the directions issued in the previous order which had called for scrapping the mechanism of accepting self-declarations of income by the families.
Under the EWS system, a child from a family which has been staying in Delhi for the past three years and has an annual income of less than ₹1 lakh was eligible for reservation in schools.
This income bracket was revised by the single-judge Bench in December last year. The Delhi government had filed an appeal against this order and expressed its inability to implement the orders for the current academic session.
The government told the court that asking for income proof from poor people would hinder the education of their children as the financially disadvantaged people were unlikely to have the necessary documents.
The government also submitted that increasing the quantum of income threshold was a policy decision that is best left to the Cabinet.
