In a significant development and respite for parents, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today restrained the schools in Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana from hiking fees without obtaining prior permission from the Education Boards and Councils they are affiliated to. “No fee and other charges shall be enhanced by any school situated within the territorial jurisdiction of this court and affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, Punjab School Education Board and the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, without prior approval of the respective Board/ Council”, a division bench comprising Justice S K Mittal and Justice TPS Mann held today.
The Bench has also issued directions to ensure that no books other than NCERT were prescribed in Punjab schools. The schools have been directed to take their respective Education Boards into confidence before any fee hike. The Bench has also directed that schools would submit their profit and loss statement for the past five years to the Central Board of Secondary Education, ICSE or Punjab School Education Board where they were affiliated.
Also, no CBSE affiliated schools would prescribe books published by publishers other than NCERT. The directions were issued on three PILs filed raising the same issue.
One of the petitions has been jointly filed by 10 students from Malerkotla while two other petitioners were city-based NGOs Anti Corruption and Crime Investigation Cell and All India Crime Preventing Society. Senior lawyer Pawan Kumar, counsel for the petitioners, sought directions to authorities to curb the menace of irrational and whimsical school fee hike by the schools.
The petitioner, referred to several Supreme Court judgments which hold that each school would maintain the account of the schools on the principles of non-business organisation.
Citing the example of a school in Punjab, the petitioner stated that in academic session 2009, the school was charging fee that included admission fee of Rs 3,500, annual charges of Rs 4,500 besides quarterly tuition fee, computer fee, science fee, conveyance fee and building fund amounting to total of Rs 5,000.
The fee was subsequently hiked in the following years. In academic year starting in 2012, the fee had been hiked to annual charges Rs 11,000, development fee Rs 2,000 besides other fees charged on quarterly basis.
The petitioner stated that as per calculation, in 2010, total amount of Rs 1.08 crore had been collected by the school as annual charges while the same was Rs 1.87 crore for the session in 2011. This is besides the students being forced to buy stationary and school dress from school shops.
The bench today issued directions to Punjab School Education Board, ICSE and CBSE to file affidavit about the schools in their jurisdiction and also that have all the schools’ filed profit and loss account for the past five years
The Boards have also been asked to file their responses as to it was being ensured that teachers were getting salaries as per norms and Right to Education Act was being followed by these schools.
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