Sanskriti School

Formation of the Civil Services Society On 7 February 1995, the spouses of the then Cabinet Secretary, the Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs, the Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, and ten other senior officers of the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Revenue Service, Indian Police Service, and Indian Railway Technical Service registered a society named the Civil Services Society. Surendra Singh served as Cabinet Secretary from August 1994 to July 1996. The school commenced operations on 12 August 1998.. Succession of principals Ishwaran served as principal until 2008 and subsequently became the chief executive officer of The Global Education and Leadership Foundation (tGELF). She was succeeded by Abha Sehgal, who served from the 2008-09 academic session until April 2017. Richa Sharma Agnihotri has been the principal since 2017. == Admissions and seat allocation ==

The school allocates its seats across four categories: 60 percent for children of Group A officers of the central government who enter service through the Civil Services Examination, 10 percent for the general public, 5 percent for children of school staff, and 25 percent for children from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category. The school began admitting students from economically weaker backgrounds in 2004, in line with its land allotment conditions that required 25 percent of intake capacity to be reserved for the EWS category. In 2012, a parent challenged the school's denial of EWS admissions to his two children despite the school having taken eight fresh admissions in Classes IV and VI that year with no EWS students admitted, which the Delhi High Court took up as a potential violation of its earlier directions and the Directorate of Education guidelines. == Legal proceedings ==

Delhi High Court PIL (2006-2015) In 2006, the Delhi High Court initiated suo motu proceedings concerning the school's receipt of public funding and subsidised government land, which subsequently became a public interest litigation (PIL) under case number W.P.(C) 8973/2006. In 2014, the then Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung filed a response defending the quota, stating that the reservation was structured to cater to the specific needs of children of serving employees whose jobs were transferable. On 6 November 2015, after nine years of proceedings, a division bench of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Mukta Gupta delivered its judgment. On 21 January 2016, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Anil R. Dave stayed the Delhi High Court order, allowing the school to continue admissions under the existing quota system pending final adjudication. As of October 2019, the case remained pending before the Supreme Court. The DoPT had directed central government ministries to furnish data on the number of officers transferred to New Delhi over the preceding five years in order to strengthen the government's defence of the quota, but most ministries had not complied. The case prompted the court to raise the income threshold for EWS admissions in Delhi schools from 1 lakh to 5 lakh rupees annually, pending government action to amend the relevant policy, though a division bench later modified this interim threshold to 2.5 lakh rupees. == Fee controversies ==

Anil Dev Singh Committee findings In 2016, a committee headed by Justice Anil Dev Singh, established by the Delhi High Court to review school fees, identified Sanskriti School among 449 private schools in Delhi that had overcharged parents on the pretext of implementing recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission. The committee directed these schools to refund the excess fees collected. In 2017, the Delhi government issued show-cause notices to these schools and threatened to take them over if they did not comply with the refund order. Approximately 50 parents, including several senior civil servants, submitted a representation to the principal characterising the hike as "prohibitively exorbitant for everyone and particularly so for honest civil servants." == Umang programme ==

The school operates a parallel educational programme called Umang, which provides free education to children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The programme primarily serves children residing in Sanjay Basti, a settlement adjacent to the school campus. == Rankings ==

In the Hindustan Times school survey, Sanskriti School was ranked the top school in Central Delhi in 2009 and second in Central Delhi in 2010. In 2015, it was ranked sixth among schools in Delhi and second in Central Delhi. According to EducationWorld, the school was ranked among the top ten co-educational day schools in India in the 2020-21 edition of the survey. == Faculty and alumni ==

Faculty • Gowri Ishwaran (founding principal, 1999 to 2008): A postgraduate in English literature, Ishwaran was awarded the Padma Shri in 2004 for her contributions to the Indian education sector. After departing Sanskriti, she served as chief executive officer of The Global Education and Leadership Foundation (tGELF) and became its vice-chairperson. • Abha Sehgal (principal, 2008 to 2017): Sehgal began her teaching career at Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram in 1980, where she taught for two decades. In 2000, she moved to the United Arab Emirates as founding principal of DPS Sharjah, growing the school from an initial intake of around 100 students to 4,500 over eight years. She joined Sanskriti School as principal in 2008 and served until April 2017. In March 2024, as a fourth-year student, he was detained by the Assam Police Special Task Force after posting an open letter on LinkedIn declaring his allegiance to the Islamic State and stating his intention to travel to ISIS-Khorasan Province. He was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. == See also ==