Calcutta, April 1: Calcutta High Court today ruled that schools can hold fresh entrance tests for promoting their students to Class V.

?Students will have to sit for fresh entrance tests in schools where the managing committees of their primary and secondary sections are different (and) ? where the authorities practice a system of holding admission tests for taking students in Class V,? Justice Arun Kumar Mitra observed.

The judgment followed petitions by Anjan Das, the guardian of a Class IV student of Jadavpur Vidyapith Primary School, and some other parents. They had challenged the school?s decision to conduct fresh admission tests for its students who had passed Class IV.

School education department officials said today?s order was important because it would help the government frame a policy on admission of students to the secondary level in nearly 7,000 state-aided institutions across Bengal.

Six cases have been lodged so far by guardians of students challenging these tests.

Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, appearing on behalf of Jadavpur Vidyapith, argued that every institution has an academic council, which takes all major decisions concerning promotion of students, methods of teaching and the examination system.

He added that the power of taking administrative decisions in state-aided secondary schools lie with their managing committees. ?Outsiders do not have the authority to interfere?. Outsiders also cannot have the power to dictate a managing committee on any important matter like what should be the admission procedure of a particular school,? Bhattacharya said.

The petitioners? lawyers countered that this is not applicable to Jadavpur Vidyapith students as the school?s primary and secondary units are housed in the same building. They said the tests were unfair as the guardians had not been informed about them when they admitted their wards to Class I.

The lawyers argued that the school authority had no right to cast a cloud on the future of the students.