: With the February 14 deadline on applying for nursery admissions nearing, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday said that deciding the petitions of schools against the government's notification on neighbourhood criterion was a “race against time”.
Justice Manmohan said there was very little time for the court to hear and decide the petitions moved by the schools. The court has been expressing its disquiet from the start over the last minute notification.
Eleventh hour
It had earlier asked the Delhi government whether “it brings the notification at the eleventh hour so that there is no time for the courts to decide any petition”. Meanwhile, during the hearing, the private unaided schools said the Delhi government's December 19, 2016 and January 7 notifications that made it mandatory for the 298 private schools built on Delhi Development Authority land, to accept nursery admission forms based only on the neighbourhood or distance criteria was discriminatory and created two groups of schools.
‘Rule discriminatory’
The Action Committee for Private Unaided schools alleged that the Delhi government has “discriminated” among schools as the neighbourhood criteria has been applied to only 298 schools while it has not been made mandatory for the other 1,400 schools.
He also contended that there is no definition of neighbourhood criteria in the allotment letter by which the DDA land was given to the schools by the L& DO department.
The High Court had on Monday asked the Centre and the Delhi government to produce before it the allotment letters on the basis of which neighbourhood criteria was said to be imposed.
Stay on notification
While the hearing on the petitions moved by the private schools is on, the court had allowed the parents to fill the application forms based on the criteria set by schools as well as the Delhi government.
Later, it had also stayed the government's notification asking private minority unaided schools to accept nursery admission forms using neighbourhood criteria.
