COVID-19: Allahabad High Court Seeks Response From UP Government, Education Boards On Regulation Of School Fees

During the hearing, a Division Bench of ACJ Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice Rajendra Kumar enquired from the UP Government as to what steps it has taken to control exorbitant and arbitrary levy of fees by private schools.

The State counsel informed the Bench that a circular is in place, directing schools to levy on tuition fees until normalcy is restored.

However, the counsel appearing for Petitioners, Advocate Shashwat Anand claimed that the said order is not being implemented and the son of one of the Petitioners has been expelled from 2^nd standard.

The counsel representing one of the schools objected to maintainability of the PIL, alleging that it is a 'personal interest litigation'. He stated that the petition refers to personal grievance of the Petitioners, allegedly being deprived of online classes.

However, Anand insisted that the incidents have been cited as a mere example and the reliefs sought in the petition are for the entire State for the public generally.

At this juncture, the Bench enquired as to why only 10 private schools had been added as Respondents to the case. The Bench sought to know if the Petitioners' children are students of the Respondent-schools.

Responding to this, Anand clarified that the Respondent-schools are leading institutions in the private sector and they have been added as a party in a representative capacity, in the spirit of Order 1 Rule 8 of CPC.

The Bench has now tagged this matter with a similar PIL titled Adarsh Bhushan v. State of UP (PIL 576/2020).

The instant plea has been filed by members of the Parents Association in Moradabad, alleging that the parents and the children are constantly being harassed by private schools via SMS and Whatsapp messages, to pay arbitrary and exorbitant school fees for the session of 2020-2021, even for the duration the schools were closed and no services were provided, during the nationwide lockdowns.

The petition points out that the UP Self-financed Independent Schools (Fee Regulation) Act, 2018 was enacted to regulate the conduct of private unaided schools and to put fetters on unreasonable demands of fees by such education institutions.

Section 8 of the said Act provides for constitution of 'District Fee Regulatory Committee' to regulate the fees to be charged by private educational institutions and to hear complaints of students/guardians/parents, with regard to the same.

However, till date, no such committees have been formed in the State.

Furthermore, the Petitioners state, Section 4(3) of the Act, inserted by way of an Ordinance dated June 17, 2020, empowers the State Government to regulate the fees to be charged by recognised schools, from existing students and newly admitted students for each academic year, in public interest, in extraordinary conditions or emergent circumstances like acts of God, Epidemics, etc.

However, till date, the State Government has also not taken any action for the succour of the distressed parents.

The plea alleges that in the aftermath of State's inaction, there is hardly any school in Moradabad District which is not harassing the parents and children for fees, even for the several months when the schools were closed.

The Petitioners allege that private schools in the city are neither allowing children to attend Online Classes, nor allowing them to sit in the Examinations or promoting them to the higher classes and in several cases even going to the extent of striking off their names from the school records, in case of non-payment of such exorbitant fees.

"In order to unlawfully extract more and more money from the children and their parents, most of the Private Schools/Institutions have not separately specified the tuition fees and have lumped the fees of all heads into one head, B i.e., 'Composite Fees,' and thus, are collecting the arbitrary and illegal school-fees in mockery of the express directions of the State Government and in blatant violation of the mandate of the 2018 Act, which is not only illegal, arbitrary and unethical, but also inhumane on the part of the Private Schools/Institutions," the plea states.

The Petitioners further allege that the entire financial burden of 'Online Tuition' has also been put on the parents, including cost of setting up of requisite technological infrastructure, expensive Internet connections, high electricity bills, etc.

Case Title: Anuj Gupta & Ors. v. State of UP & Ors.