KOCHI: The High Court on Tuesday expressed surprise as to why the 29 students of Arooja’s Little Stars School at Mattanchery did not file an application seeking to implead in the petition filed by the school management for allowing the students to write the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class X examinations.

The court raised the question when the petition filed by Maggie Arooja, manager, Arooja’s Educational and Charitable Trust, and school principal Sindhu Mohan, seeking a directive to the CBSE to issue hall tickets to the students came up for hearing. The petition stated that the school was started in 2000 with LKG and classes for the first batch of Class IX started in 2012. Despite earnest efforts and filing necessary applications, the CBSE did not grant affiliation from 2000.

The Class X students appear for the examinations after registering in neighbouring schools having CBSE affiliation. This year also an application for affiliation and for a no-objection certificate from the state was filed and the requisite fee of `75,000 was remitted. However, the government did not issue the NoC, they said.The school management alleged that students of a few other schools had been given registration while its students had been discriminated against.