High Court orders merger of school IDs in bid to ‘serve larger goal of RTE Act’

The verdict by the court of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma came over a bunch of petitions by parents of several minor children who were admitted to the junior wing of Holy Innocents Public School under the EWS/DG category. They were subsequently denied admission to the senior wing of the same school despite being promoted to class 1 because of different IDs of the two wings assigned to them by the Department of Education (DoE).

The different IDs were issued on account of the two wings being located separately — one in Janakpuri and another in Vikaspuri — even as the two wings are run by the same trust. The DoE has now agreed to merge the two IDs.

Observing that this is a recurrent issue faced by EWS/DG students in the city, the High Court directed that the different identification numbers, assigned to the junior and senior wings of the same schools that are run by the same educational societies in Delhi, “be merged into a single ID by the DoE.” The court said that the process of merging be completed within eight weeks of the passing of the judgment and a compliance report be filed by the DoE after eight weeks. “In this court’s opinion,” the HC said, “seamless transition from one class to another is important in ensuring that the dignity of the children and their parents is not compromised.”