The principals of the two La Martiniere schools will have a say in the admission of students from 2019, something they allegedly did not have in the past few years, the Church of North India (CNI) has said.

There were allegations that the secretary of the two schools had much greater power in making the final selection than the principals or any other teacher.

The secretary for the past 10 years, Supriyo Dhar, resigned on Thursday. He denied that he had controlled the admission process.

“The principals will now have a say in the admissions. They will have to state the exact number of seats to be filled up before the start of the admission process. Say there are 100 seats in a school. It will have to admit exactly the same number of students. The entire admission process will be held under the supervision of the principals. This is part of the new policy the Church has drawn up to make the admission process more transparent. There had been a lot of talk about irregularities in the admissions of some of our schools in the past few years,” Reverend Probal Kanto Dutta, the new bishop of the Calcutta diocese of the Church of North India, told Metro.

“A small number of seats, depending on the number of vacancies, will be set aside to accommodate special cases,” the bishop added.

Guardians will have to send applications seeking admission for their wards under the special category directly to the Church, which will take a decision after examining all relevant documents.

At a meeting with representatives of private schools at Town Hall on May 31 last year, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had said she had received complaints against La Martiniere about donation. “Why do you take so much? Then there is donation. There is a case against you all and I have documents. The donation that you take is maximum and there has been a police case regarding it…. There are some touts and middlemen who are taking the money and are saying that the money will be required for the admission. This has created a racket. Please take measures to stop this,” the chief minister had told a school representative.

In November 2016, Manju Rathi, 45, had been arrested for allegedly taking money from willing parents to get their children admitted to some of Calcutta’s reputable private schools. She would allegedly quote between Rs 5 and Rs 15 lakh to ensure a seat depending on the institute and the difficulty in keeping her side of the bargain.

Asked if he controlled the admission process, Dhar told Metro: “No no, absolutely not. Everything was done with the (then) bishop’s approval…. The secretary’s was a postman’s job.”

He also denied that the principals had no role in the admission process. “The bishop formed an admission committee every year, which included the principals, two or three board members and the secretary. Members of the committee interacted with the parents. Counsellors interacted with the children. Their combined reports were used to draw up a list that was sent to the bishop for approval,” Dhar said.

A Church official said though a committee had existed, “some individuals controlled the process, not the principals”.

A panel headed by the bishop has been set up to conduct the La Martiniere admissions in 2019. The principals of the two schools, the assistant bursar and a member of the school board are among the panel members. “The principals will now have to award scores to the applicants in interviews along with child counselling experts,” the Church official said.

A merit list of selected students will be drawn up and put up on the schools’ notice board and website, something that had ceased to be the practice over the past few years, the Church official said. In the past few years, parents were informed individually.

The scores awarded by the principals and the counsellor will not figure on the selection list that will be published. The schools, however, will store the data and present a child’s score if an aggrieved guardian wants to see it. The scores of other students, however, will not be disclosed.

“We have brought in these changes in our admission process to ensure greater fairness. The schools have earned their reputation through years of hard work and dedicated services of the Church. We don’t want anything to go wrong with these institutions as the institutions are witnesses of the church,” the bishop said.

The new policy will be also applicable for Pratt Memorial, run by the CNI, from 2019.

It will be gradually applied to other CNI schools such as St James’ School, St Thomas’ Boys’ School, St Thomas’ Girls’ School, St John’s Diocesan Girls’ Higher Secondary School and Union Chapel School.