Management quota in education

The Delhi high court has restored management quota for nursery admission in Delhi private schools. This decision is opposite of Supreme courts stand that their should be no reservation in education because it allow incompetent people to grow and actual talent starved. Court observed that parliamentarian should raise above vote bank politics and scrap quota for weaker sections in education and jobs to let meritocracy grow. Because reservation is holding back real talent and is reason of India's backwardness.

On other hand court don't find anything wrong in seats in education institutions and government department being reserved for relatives of management committee and children of employees of government department. People who keep posting on facebook and twitter against reservation for backward casts suddenly become silent on issue of reservation for relatives of management committee. I see clear bias in mind of people opposing reservation in favor of rich people. Critiques of reservation don’t want anyone to speak about reservation for children of affluent class in terms of management quota and discretionary powers. Reservation for relatives of management committee is even more harmful than reservation for affluent people because it produces a class of engineers and doctors who are incompetent and nation have to bear with them. These people are incompetent despite having all resources with them.

The critiques of reservation for backward castes blame all backwardness of India to reservation system and keep silent about management quota. These people want reservation for affluent class to continue bust quota for backward classes to stop. These people are from affluent class and want all good things to be reserved for them.

The court's argument about autonomy being granted to people who make investment at their own personal risk is faulty. Schools are allowed to decide their fee to recover their investments. Court can grant autonomy in deciding fee for school but not right to discriminate between students. There are many other fields where people make investment on their personal risk like insurance companies, telecom companies, hotels, restaurants etc. Can we allow them to discriminate between people just because they made investment on their own risk? If we allow so then we may see hotels allowing guests only from upper caste, restaurants refusing to serve people of certain religion or caste. If someone starts a business then he/she have to abide by laws of land and must be prohibited from doing any sort of discrimination. Fee charged for the services should be only criteria and no other criteria should be allowed in providing the services.

I see this decision to be a clear case of judicial corruption and against spirit of our constitution.

• 5 Feb 2016
• Hindustan Times (Delhi)
• Soibam Rocky Singh rocky.singh@hindustantimes.com

Management quota for nursery restored

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Thursday restored the management quota and 11 criteria for nursery admission in the Capital’s private unaided schools abolished by the Aam Aadmi Party government. The court asked the government to take action against malpractices such as sale of seats.

In an interim order, justice Manmohan stayed a January 6 circular of the Arvind Kejriwal led government that scrapped 62 admission criteria, including the management quota under which schools could use their discretion to award seats.

After this order, apart from the management quota, private unaided schools will be able to admit students on 11 criteria under a points system such as first born, adopted child, twins, parents with proficiency in music, sports, national awardee, etc.

“Promoters of a school who make investment at their own personal risk are entitled to full autonomy in administration including the right to admit students,” justice Manmohan said.

“Prima facie, the impugned (January 6) order has been issued without any authority and is in direct conflict with the order of 2007 issued by the lieutenant governor (which permitted management quota up to 20%).”

Hours after the verdict, the government said an appeal will be filed while schools welcomed it.

A private schools’ association said its “autonomy” was upheld and the decision was timely enough to not disturb the nursery admission schedule.

“Facilitating good education for students in Delhi is the responsibility of the government. We will appeal against the HC order,” deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who holds the education portfolio, tweeted.

Earlier, Kejriwal had termed management quota a scam and a way to “loot people” while defending the government’s decision to scrap it along with 61 criteria that according to it were “unfair, unreasonable and non-transparent”.

The court declined to consider an argument that “schools have no discretion in admission because of a covenant in the lease deed”, saying it would be considered at a later stage.