‘Can’t Issue Mandamus To Govt’: Delhi High Court On PIL Seeking Enactment Of 2015 Bill To Ban Screening For Nursery Admissions

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said that it cannot direct the Delhi Government to pass or implement the Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill, 2015 which proposes to prohibits the screening procedure for admissions in nursery or pre-primary level in schools.

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela adjourned to May 17 a public interest litigation moved by NGO Social Jurist seeking expeditious finalization of the Bill and asked its lawyer, Advocate Ashok Aggarwal, to obtain instructions in the matter.

At the outset, Delhi Government’s Standing Counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi raised an objection that Aggarwal himself staged a protest against the Bill when it was introduced back in 2015 and was now seeking implementation of the same.

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 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 we can issue mandamus to the government?,” the Chief Justice remarked.

Calling it a “child friendly bill”, the plea said that the 2015 Bill has been “hanging” between the Union and Delhi Governments for the last seven years without any justification, adding that the same is against public interest and opposed to public policy.

The NGO has also submitted that 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 Union of India stating that the finalizing of bill is still pending between the two governments.

“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 7 years of its unanimously passing from Delhi Assembly in 2015. It is submitted that this child friendly Bill banning screening procedure in Nursery admissions is hanging between Central and Delhi Government for the last 7 years without any justification and against the public interest,” the plea states.

It adds 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 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 states.

Title: Social Jurist, A Civil Rights Group v. Government of NCT of Delhi & Ors.