HC issues notice on plea seeking action against ‘dummy schools’ in Delhi

The PIL claims that the idea behind “dummy school” is one which provides a “virtual platform to students to show that they have migrated to Delhi after passing 10th exam with the sole purpose of somehow availing the benefit of Delhi state quota seats, which otherwise ought to be allocated amongst the bonafide residents of NCT of Delhi”.

“Typically, a student, via the dummy platform, gets enrolled into the dummy school without attending classrooms or without following the curriculum but only appears in the final exams as a student of that school…the schools which are resorting to such practices charge a premium from such students for maintaining them as regular students on their records in order to fulfil the requirement of the Board they are affiliated to…the nexus of such schools is quite deep as various coaching institutes guide their students for getting admission to such school under ‘dummy schooling’ with a bait that they will be eligible for Delhi state quota seats and will also have extra time for preparation of NEET/other competitive exams as they would not be required to attend school regularly,” the plea submits.

The plea further submits that the concept of a ‘dummy school’ blatantly violates the CBSE’s education standards. It states that the CBSE bylaws for affiliation provide that records/documentation will be maintained by all CBSE-affiliated schools and that it is incumbent upon an affiliated school to maintain records of attendance of all students, especially the attendance of Classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 for admission to the Board’s examinations.

The plea further claims that ‘dummy schools’ provide students only to appear for examinations without the requirement of attendance and are in obvious contravention of the bylaws of CBSE “mandating 75% attendance”.

Among the various prayers sought, the plea seeks a direction to the CBSE to issue appropriate guidelines for the identification of ‘dummy schools’ operating in Delhi for aspirants of NEET-UG. It also seeks a direction to CBSE to take necessary action against its affiliated schools indulging in illegally offering ‘dummy schooling’ to Class 11 and 12 students.

It further seeks a direction for striking down the extant practice of the Delhi government of not providing the criteria of residence as one of the eligibility criteria for claiming Delhi state quota seats (85 per cent of the total seats) and restricting the eligibility criteria to passing of Class 11 and 12 exams from a school affiliated to a recognised board within Delhi for an aspirant or candidate to be eligible to claim Delhi state quota seats for admission to MBBS and BDS courses in the colleges affiliated to Delhi University and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.