The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said that it cannot issue the writ of mandamus to the Delhi government to expedite the finalization process of the Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill, 2015 which relates to the prohibition of screening procedure in the matter of admissions to the preprimary level (nursery/pre-primary).
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Tushar Rao Gedala asked Advocate Ashok Agarwal to show them a provision of law that states that the court can order a writ of mandamus to the government.
During the hearing, Advocate Ashok Agarwal along with Advocate Kumar Utkarsh appearing for the NGO contended, such a long delay with the child-friendly bill is not justified at all.
Opposing the PIL, Delhi government standing counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi apprised the bench that when this Bill was introduced in 2015, Agarwal had himself staged a protest against the present bill. “Today he is saying to implement this Bill, My Lord!,” he argued.
To this, Agarwal contended, “This is wrong! The protest was against the part of the bill that takes away the right of the teachers under Section 10 and this bill was drafted by me. After I drafted the bill, the government had accepted it. How can I protest against a bill, I drafted.”
“What is this you are doing Dharna and then you are filing this PIL…You are an interested person. Dharna was regarding this bill also. We cannot pass a writ of mandamus to the government,” the Chief Justice remarked orally.
Additionally, Justice Gedala said, “Can a constitutional court pass a writ of mandamus to the government? Where is the consideration? Where is any Judgment? We can’t pass a mandamus! Sorry!”
“We cannot issue mandamus! State one judgment where we can issue a mandamus. Please, Show me! There are none at all…this is not done. Under the PIL, just throw any piece of paper on us!,” CJ Sharma remarked.
Accordingly, the court adjourned the matter to May 17 and asked Agarwal to seek instructions on the matter.
The PIL filed by NGO Social Jurist, a Civil rights group, alleges that private schools have been adopting the unethical practice of subjecting children aged 3+ to screening procedures. It states that “a child-friendly Bill, namely, Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill, 2015, banning screening procedures in Nursery admission in schools is hanging between the Central and Delhi Governments for the last 7 years without any justification and is against the public interest and opposed to public policy”.
“Right to Education Act, 2009, prohibits screening procedures in the matter of admission of a child in a school and makes it offence punishable under the law. However, the Act, does not apply to children below 6 years of age and so does not apply to nursery class admissions”, it stated.
The plea further states that the admission criteria being adopted by the private schools are a screening procedure in terms of Section 2 (o) of the RTE Act, 2009 which is prohibited and punishable under Section 13 of the RTE Act, 2009.
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