The Supreme Court, today, Friday, October 13, rejected a plea that contested the Delhi High Court's decision declining to instruct the lieutenant governor to either approve or return a 2015 bill proposing a ban on screening children for nursery admissions, reports PTI.
According to the report, Justices SK Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia asserted that they could not pass a direction to enact a law.
"Can there be a mandamus to enact a law? Can we direct the government to introduce the bill? Supreme Court can't be the panacea for everything," the bench said.
Previously, the Delhi High Court had dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) submitted by the NGO Social Jurist on July 3, stating that it could not interfere with the legislative process or instruct the lieutenant governor to either approve or return the Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill, 2015.
As per PTI, the organisation, represented by advocate Ashok Agarwal, appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the child-friendly bill, designed to ban screening processes in nursery school admissions, had languished unresolved between the Central and Delhi governments for seven years, which was detrimental to public interest and public policy.
The PIL was turned down by a division bench of the Delhi High Court, which held that it was not appropriate for a high court to instruct a governor, a constitutional authority, to set a time frame for matters within his jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, states PTI.
"In the considered opinion of this court, even though the bill has been passed by the House, it is always open to the governor to agree or to send the bill back to the House and this court ought not pass a writ of mandamus directing the governor to act," the high court had said.
The appeal against the high court's decision underscored that the 2015 bill's primary objective was to safeguard children from exploitation and unjust discrimination during nursery admissions in private schools.
According to PTI, the purpose of the bill was defeated by the delay, it said, adding the Delhi government had got the legislation passed by the assembly way back in 2015.
The Bill, it said, was passed keeping in mind the 2013 decision of the Delhi High Court on a PIL filed by the Social Jurist. The high court had said in 2013 that the government may consider making necessary amendments to the law to ensure that children seeking nursery admission also get the benefits of the Right to Education Act.
The NGO submitted a representation on March 21, 2023, urging authorities to finalise the bill. However, a response from the Centre on April 11 indicated that the bill had not yet been finalised by the two governments.
The NGO argued that more than 1.5 lakh nursery-level admissions take place each year in private schools in Delhi, subjecting children over three years of age to screening, which was contrary to the spirit of the Right to Education Act, 2009.
The NGO sought the court's intervention to hasten the finalisation of the bill with regard to the prohibition of screening in pre-primary admissions.
