The Gujarat High Court, in a judgement made public on Wednesday, quashed and set aside the order issued by the district primary education officer (DPEO) that denied Calorex Education and Research Foundation permission to operate Delhi Public School East (DPS East).
On a petition filed by the Foundation, the high court directed the district primary education officer to “pass necessary orders for recognition of the petitioner’s school for the academic year 2022-’23 within four weeks.”
The foundation had filed a court petition in September challenging the DPEO’s refusal to grant permission to open classes 1 to 5 and 6 to 8, primarily on the grounds that the petitioner had failed to comply with an earlier order of the director of primary education from October 2020, which required the petitioner to pay a fine of Rs 50 lakh.
The DPEO’s orders were challenged in court by the director of primary education, who dismissed the appeals in August.
The petitioner then appealed to The Supreme court, requesting that the orders issued by the DPEO and the director of primary education be quashed and set aside.
The foundation claimed that they had already paid the penalty and had filed applications to open the school in accordance with one of the terms of the order.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had cancelled DPS East Ahmedabad’s affiliation after it was discovered that the school had leased out land to an ashram of self-styled guru Nithyananda, who was facing a case for allegedly keeping women in “illegal confinement” without the CBSE’s permission.
The Gujarat government decided to take over management of the school until the end of the 2019-2020 academic session, but with the powers vested in the Director Primary Education, the school was granted special permission to continue until April 2021, after which it was directed to transfer students to another school.