In yet another blow to young parents and their children, the city’s nursery admissions came to a halt on Friday again with the Supreme Court staying the recent order of the Delhi High Court giving the go-ahead for admissions.
The order came on a plea by parents of Inter-State Transfer (IST) category students who were asked to wait while admission for other categories were allowed to go on.
The order came as a big blow to parents whose children, under the April 3 order of the High Court (HC) took admissions in schools and even paid the fees. With the Supreme Court (SC) staying the HC direction, the admission process came to a standstill, opening another round of litigation before the apex court.
A bench of Justices Hl Dattu and SA Bobde issued a notice on a petition by IST category parents who claimed that with the recent HC decision the fates of their children were sealed as the admission process was allowed to go on leaving no chance for the children to get admission in the current year.
The HC, in its interim order, directed that those children who applied and got selected in draw of lots for neighbourhood, other siblings and alumni categories could be admitted while IST could wait. Under the point-based admission system, 70 points are for neighbourhood criteria (up to six km), 20 points for sibling already studying in the school, and five points each for children of alumni and IST, adding to a total of 100 points.
The apex bench issued notice on the petition and ordered stay till further orders after senior advocate Nidesh Gupta, who appeared for the petitioners argued that as per the Delhi Government decision of February 27, 2014, to scrap IST category and hold a fresh draw of lots owing to several fake applications received under IST category, the genuine IST seekers were put to a serious disadvantage.
The petition claimed that 2,925 genuine transfer cases got excluded as a result of the notification despite having succeeded in the initial draw of lots held on December 18, 2013.
With the hearing before the HC fixed on April 16, Gupta contended that though the issue was yet to be finally decided, all the neighbourhood category kids (having 70 points) will be admitted as per their selection in earlier draws, while the admission of IST group, will fail to make it this year.