NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday cleared the confusion over the age eligibility of children for admissions to schools in the Capital, holding that children who have completed three, four and five years on April 1 of every academic session were eligible for admissions to the Nursery, KG and Class I, respectively.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice M. K. Sharma and Justice Sanjiv Khanna allowed guardians of wards seeking admission to the three classes to submit forms if their children had attained the eligible age.

Referring to Section 16 of the Delhi Education Act, the Bench had last December allowed guardians of intending students to submit forms for admission to Nursery, KG and Class I during the current academic session provided they were three, four and five years of age on April 1, 2007, respectively.

A bare perusal of the provision would make it clear that a child who has attained the age of five years can be admitted to Class I or to its equivalent, the Bench said, stressing that children who have not attained the age of four years on the date of admission cannot be admitted to KG and for admission to Nursery, a child must be of three years on the date of admission.

Reports that children who had not completed three years of age were also being admitted to Nursery class were totally incorrect as no such order could be passed overlooking the provisions of Section 16(1) of the Act.

No such stand could be taken without challenging the provisions of Section 16(1) of the Act. Whether or not a child could begin his education at the age of three was an argument against the statutory provision.

Since the academic session for admission to all schools starts in April, March 31 was ordered to be the cut-off date for computing the age factor as provided for under Section 16 (1) of the Act, the Bench stated.

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