Excluding urban population of 2 Delhi districts from admission in JNVs arbitrary: HC

NEW DELHI: The exclusion of people of two city districts from taking admission in Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) under a quota for urban population is arbitrary, discriminatory and unreasonable, the Delhi High Court has said.

Justice Mini Pushkarna said the urban population in New Delhi and Central districts has every right to be treated at par with the urban population of other districts of Delhi for grant of admission in JNVs under the 25 per cent quota for urban population. The court's observations came on a petition against the cancellation of admission of a student belonging to Scheduled Tribe category to class 6 in JNV in North district here on account of not being from a district where the school was located.

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The school said the petitioner was not eligible to get the admission as he belonged to New Delhi district which consisted of 100% urban population. "When Delhi itself has only 2.5% population as rural population, exclusion of New Delhi and Central Districts for the purposes of admission in JNVs, is totally unreasonable, as the urban population in the New Delhi and Central Districts has every right to be treated at par with the urban population of other districts of Delhi for grant of admission in the JNVs under the 25% quota of urban population,” said the court in a recent order.

“Decision of the respondent (school) to exclude Central and New Delhi districts from the ambit of JNVs and not granting an opportunity to the students of the said districts for admission to JNVs under the urban quota, is clearly arbitrary, leading to inequality and clearly hit by Article 14 of the Constitution of India,” it stated.

Emphasising the government's constitutional obligation to give equal opportunity to all, especially in matters of admission to educational institutions, the court asserted that the respondent school is bound to ensure that the policies framed by it are neither discriminatory nor arbitrary.

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The authorities, in the present case, also argued that the petitioner did not belong to the district where the JNV concerned was located and was thus not entitled for admission there. The court noted that despite nine JNVs being sanctioned for Delhi, only two have been set up and admissions were granted to students from all the districts to the two JNVs from 1987 till 2019 and thus the eligibility condition pertaining to the location of candidates was not followed strictly.

Further, since the policy provides for admission of 25% students from the urban areas, the decision to exclude New Delhi and Central districts from the ambit of JNV schools and not granting admission to the children studying in schools of the said districts is “totally unjustified”.

“Considering the aforesaid fact, coupled with the fact that the respondent was granting admission across Delhi to the students from all the districts to the two JNVs situated in Delhi right from 1987 till 2019, the decision of the respondent in excluding Central District and New Delhi District from the ambit of admission to JNVs and the decision of the respondent to cancel the admission of the petitioner, are found to be totally unjustified and untenable,” said the court.

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"Exclusion of the urban population of Central and New Delhi districts for admission to JNVs, is totally arbitrary, discriminatory and unreasonable," the court opined. The court noted that the petitioner belonged to a socially and economically backward class and his father was a taxi driver and thus the noble objective of establishing JNVs, i.e. to open the doors of education to marginalised population, cannot be overlooked.

“The noble objective of establishing Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas cannot be lost sight of. The objective of establishing the JNVs is to provide good quality and modern education to the children predominantly from rural areas in India, targeting gifted students who lack access to accelerated learning due to financial, social and rural disadvantages,” it said.

“Thus, the petitioner claiming a seat as a candidate from urban area is fully entitled to be granted equal opportunity as other candidates from urban areas of different districts in Delhi,” the court ruled. The court rejected the objection that the petitioner provided wrong information in his application form and since the academic sessions for class 6 was almost over, it directed that he shall be granted admission in class 7 by the school in the academic session beginning from next month.