Nursery entry: A 3-year-old receives no HC relief

New Delhi: A plea against a private unaided school’s denial of admission to a three-year-old due to a “erroneous” point calculation was rejected by the Delhi High Court.

Judge C Hari Shankar rejected the plea on Master Ivaan’s denial of admission, stating, “There does not appear to be any error in the school treating the petitioner’s residence as between 1 and 2 km, rather than as between 0 and 1 km and, therefore, awarding the petitioner only 65 points instead of 70 against the distance criterion.”

According to the petitioner, the respondent school made a mistake in determining how many points the kid was eligible for. Before the single judge bench, the mother and father argued that the school had given the kid 65 points despite the distance requirement and that it had erred in not awarding the boy 20 points since his siblings were enrolled in the same school.

Attorney Atul Jain refuted both of the accusations while speaking on behalf of the institution.

The petitioner claimed that the kid was entitled to an extra 20 points since his siblings were enrolled in the same school, citing a circular from the Department of Education (DOE) dated February 26, 2020.

Advocate Jain countered that the respondent institution was not covered by the aforementioned circular; rather, it pertained to schools of distinction.

The attorney informed the court that the school limited the availability of a second kid for the academic year 2024–2025 in its admission standards against open seats. The school refused to provide the petitioner’s son with the benefit of the sibling requirement since he was the third child.

The petitioner submitted two forms with the same location but stated a different distance between the school and house, according to the court, which noted that the petitioner had failed to present any circular on which he could have claimed 20 points as a sibling.

The petitioner’s house cannot be more than 1.39 kilometers from the school; the school determined this distance using Google software. This was the position put forth by the school’s attorney.

“The very act of submitting two forms with different distances between the petitioner’s residence and the school being shown, one between 0 and 1 km and other between 1 and 2 kms, itself disentitles the petitioner to relief under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, in which equity essentially and fundamentally inheres,” the court stated.

“Neither of the contentions advanced by the petitioner, regarding miscalculation by the respondent-school of the points to which the petitioner was entitled either on the sibling criterion or on the distance criterion, therefore, impresses,” the court said as it dismissed the request on April 22.