Salman Khursheed

New Delhi, Nov. 23 (PTI): Delhi High Court today restrained the Delhi Public School Society from expelling Union minister Salman Khursheed as a member for questioning its style of functioning.

A bench of Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar pulled up the society for not allowing Khursheed to present his point of view before issuing the expulsion notice.

“Status quo is granted till December 10,” the bench said, posting the matter to December 8.

Khursheed, a member of the society since 1984 and its president between 1993 and 2004, had approached the division bench after a single-judge bench refused to grant interim relief by stopping the society from taking any adverse action against him.

The two-judge bench questioned the procedure adopted by the society in expelling Khursheed and said proper opportunity be given to the minister to present his arguments.

“Your notice is not a notice at all. It is like a conclusion. You should issue a show-cause notice and allow him to file his reply in a time-bound manner,” the court said.

The DPS society had defended the expulsion procedure and said it was being followed for a long time and that the minister had also approved of it when he was its president.

Khursheed, in his petition, alleged that the society, which runs 130 schools across the country, had taken action against him after he objected to it collecting money “illegally” from schools in the name of licence fee and signing fee, which was against the norms of the Delhi Education Act.

Khursheed was not a minister at the time of his expulsion.

The single-judge bench had on October 27 refused to stay Khursheed’s expulsion.

“No case is made out for grant of injunction and, prima facie, there is no infirmity in the... notice dated September 1, 2008,” the bench had said.