New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said it cannot direct the government to pass or finalise the Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill, 2015 which proposes to ban screening procedure in nursery admissions in schools.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela posted the petition for May 17, asking the petitioner’s counsel to seek further instructions in the matter.
The high court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) which submitted that a child-friendly bill – Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill, 2015 – is hanging between central and Delhi governments for the past seven years without any justification and against public interest and opposed to public policy.
The petition by NGO Social Jurist, through advocates Ashok Agarwal and Kumar Utkarsh, said the very objective and purpose of the bill is to protect tiny tots from exploitation and unjust discrimination in the matter of nursery admission in private schools which is literally defeated by delay in finalising it by the governments and making it a law.
Delhi government standing counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi raised an objection claiming that Agarwal himself had protested earlier against the bill and he was leading the protest and now he want the bill to be passed.
However, Agarwal submitted that there were three bills and he was opposing the other two bills which allegedly took away the right of teachers and not the present one.
To this, the bench said, “What is this? You are doing ‘dharna’ and then you are filing this PIL. You are an interested party. We cannot issue a mandamus to the government. This is not done. Under PIL, you throw any piece of paper on us and then ask us to decide.”
The NGO said it had made a representation to the authorities on March 21 requesting them to urgently finalise the bill. However, on April 11, a response was received from the Centre stating that the finalising of bill is still pending between the two governments.
It said that more than 1.5 lakh admissions at nursery level take place every year in Delhi in private schools and children above 3 years of age are subjected to screening procedure which is against the letter and spirit of the Right to Information Act, 2009.
“There is no justification at all to not to prohibit screening procedure at nursery level and therefore, respondents are required to finalise the bill as soon as possible to do justice to tiny tots of the country,” the plea said.
It sought the court to direct the governments to expedite the process of finalisation of the bill so far as it relates to prohibition of screening procedure in the matter of admission of tiny tots at pre primary level (nursery/ pre-primary) in schools.
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