High court backs panel’s order against fee hike by school

Ghaziabad: The Allahabad high court has asked Seth Anandram Jaipuria School in Vasundhara’s Sector 14 to follow the fee structure prescribed by the district fee regulation committee (DFRC) for the time being, till it passes a final order in the case. The school had approached the HC against DFRC’s order earlier this year.
“But even though the high court had initially stayed DFRC’s order in February this year, Jaipuria had started deregistering the names of the students whose parents did not deposit the hiked fee. The court was approached again last month and on April 30, it ordered the school to follow DFRC’s fee structure and not to expel any student,” said Ritu Maheshwar, district magistrate and chairperson of DFRC.
The DFRC had, in January, fined four schools, including Jaipuria, Rs 1 lakh each for arbitrarily hiking fees. The four schools were not only barred from hiking fees in the academic session 2019-20, but also asked to refund excess fees they had charged during academic year 2018-19 and revert to the fee structure of 2017-18.
The schools had then approached the high court against the DFRC’s decision, following which the court had, in February, granted stay on the fee panel’s decision. But now, the stay has been partially vacated till the matter is fully heard and disposed.
The state government had last year promulgated the Uttar Pradesh Self-Finance Independent School (Fee Regulation) Act, 2018, to keep a check on unaided private schools in the state.
A district-level committee (DFRC) was subsequently formed and vested with the powers of a civil court to decide on issues related to fee hike. The committee has representation from all stake-holders, with the DM as its chairperson, district inspector of schools as its secretary, a chartered accountant, accounts officer, two members from school, parents association and executive engineer from the PWD.
The panel had on April 20 asked Apeejay School, too, to roll back fees for its 4,000 students and imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh for not doing it earlier. The school has complied with the order and deposited a cheque of Rs 5 lakh with the district administration as the fine.
Apeejay School has, however, informed DFRC that it would challenge the order at the appellate authority overseeing district level committees. Parents had lodged a complaint with the DFRC alleging that Apeejay had hiked fee by Rs 5,000 per student in the last quarter in an arbitrary manner and without the consent of DFRC. The Fee Regulation Act mentions that any hike in yearly fee should be consulted with the panel.