New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday reserved its order in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by NGO Social Jurist seeking directions to expedite the finalisation of the Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill, 2015, which proposes to prohibit the screening process for admissions to nursery or pre-primary levels of schools.
A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said: “Orders reserved, We will pass appropriate orders.”
The case’s lawyer Ashok Agarwal referred to Section 24 of the Government of NCT of Delhi Act, 1991, and argued that seven years delay in finalising the pro-child bill is totally unjustified.
On May 2, the court had refused to direct the Delhi government to pass or implement the bill.
The bench had also asked Aggarwal to seek instructions on the matter.
Santosh Kumar Tripathi, the Standing Counsel for the Delhi government, had objected right away claiming that Aggarwal had protested the Bill when it was first introduced in 2015 and was now calling for its implementation.
However, Aggarwal said that the protest was made against two Bills which “took away the right of teachers” and not against the one which is the subject matter of the PIL.
The bench, however, said that no direction or mandamus can be passed to the government to implement a Bill as sought in the plea.
“You are doing dharna and all and then filing this PIL… You are an interested person. We cannot pass a mandamus. Show us one judgment. Under PIL, you throw any piece of paper on us! We cannot issue mandamus to the government… Under which provision can we issue mandamus to the government?” the Chief Justice had asked.
The 2015 Bill, which was referred to as a “child-friendly bill” in the petition, was “hanging” between the Union and Delhi governments for the past seven years without any explanation, according to the petition, and it is also against the public interest and contrary to public policy.
Additionally, the NGO has claimed that it appealed to the authorities on March 21 to expeditiously finalise the Bill. On April 11, the Union of India responded, saying that the two governments are still working on finalising the Bill.
“The petitioner submits that people have a right to know why a child-friendly Bill has not seen the light of the day even after seven years of its unanimously passing from Delhi Assembly in 2015. It is submitted that this child-friendly Bill banning screening procedure in nursery admissions has been hanging between the Central and Delhi governments for the last seven years without any justification and against the public interest,” the plea states.
More than 1.5 lakh nursery level admissions occur annually in private schools in Delhi and that screening procedures are applied to children older than three years old, in violation of the law and spirit of the 2009 Right to Information Act, it is contended.
“There is no justification at all to not prohibit screening procedures at the 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 states.
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