Updated on: Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Delhi High Court asked the city government to respond to a plea challenging its circular which has raised the requisite percentage marks of students for their admission to Science and Commerce streams in class XI.
"Issue notice to respondents (Directorate of Education and two schools) for October 08," Justice G S Sistani said.
The court's order came on a petition by the fathers of two minor students, Abhishek and Mohit Kumar, who could not get their preferred Commerce and Science streams in class XI respectively due to change in the criteria for the course allotment.
The petition, filed through advocate Ashok Agarwal, said the DoE's admission criteria 2012-13 for the government and aided schools has debarred 26,000 students from taking admission in Science and Commerce streams.
"A candidate with a seven Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) will be given admission in science stream compared to 6 CGPA last year," the petition said, adding the students will have to have a B2 grade in subjects like English, Maths and Science as compared to C1 grade last year.
"For the Commerce stream, a candidate with a 5 CGPA was eligible previous year but now a minimum 6.6 CGPA with Mathematics or 6 CGPA without Mathematics is required," it said.
Terming the change as "illegal and unconstitutional", the petition sought a direction for quashing the circular and allow admission to the students in their preferred streams.
"It is nothing but discouraging students to take Science and Commerce streams and therefore, such a criteria is unconstitutional and also against public interest and opposed to public policy", Agarwal said.