All city cradles will reopen on Monday after Durga Puja holidays, but junior students of DPS will grapple with a bizarre dilemma.

The academic future of 400 children, studying in nursery to Class II on the Mango campus, is caught in an unseemly controversy over lease agreement involving property owner Avinash Singh and Patna-based Vishwa Gyan Punj Trust that runs the school.

According to the 11-year agreement from January 2002, the Trust was supposed to vacate the school building four months prior to the last date of lease, which it did not. “This is why we asked parents before Puja vacation not to send their children here after the school reopens. The Trust can run the junior section from the school campus in Bhilaipahari (on NH-33),” said Singh.

DPS had debuted in the city on November 20, 2001. The Mango campus became operational in 2002. The school’s Bhilaipahari premises opened in 2006.

Puzzled parents have decided to meet DPS principal Dhananjay Pan on Monday and submit a memorandum. At a meeting at Jubilee Park on Sunday, they also decided to apprise the Delhi Public School Society in New Delhi about the predicament.

Principal Pan, who is currently in Ranchi, said students could join the Bhilaipahari campus, but parents claimed the decision had not been communicated to them yet. “Besides, we are also not keen to send our wards to a highway campus, which is 5km away from the present one,” said a disgruntled parent.