Consumer court tells Dahod pvt school to return LCs to mother

Vadodara: A private high school in Dahod had to face a legal battle for refusing to hand over the leaving certificate and marksheets of two girls to their divorced mother who lives in the city
Complainant Naznin Sheikh, who lives on Vasna Road, had to approach a local consumer court in Dahod after SR High School refused to give her the duplicate documents. The Dahod district consumer disputes redressal forum ordered the school to hand over the documents within a fortnight and also pay compensation of Rs 4,000.

After divorcing her husband Mohammed Nishar Arab in Dahod, Sheikh last year applied for leaving certificates and marksheets of her daughters Kaynat and Sidrah who studied in class V and class XII respectively in the school.

Sheikh’s daughters wanted to pursue further education in Vadodara for which they wanted the leaving certificates and marksheets. The school informed her that the girls’ father had already taken the documents.

In October, Sheikh sent a legal notice to the school to give an explanation about why the documents were handed over to Arab.

In reply to Sheikh, the school told her that she can get document certificates and marksheets by producing an affidavit and Aadhar card.

‘Since Sheikh was ill, she sent her lawyer to the school with an authorization letter and affidavit to hand over the documents. But the school allegedly made the lawyer wait there for an entire day and did not hand over the documents by making excuses.

Sheikh then approached the court requesting it to order the school to give the duplicate documents and pay compensation.

During the hearing of the case, Sheikh produced evidence including the application done for the documents, authority letter and affidavits which were not challenged by the school.

The court observed that the school offers service of providing education so it is liable to hand over the documents and not handing over documents despite providing affidavit.