Give details of expenditure, income: HC to school body

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 21

About a year after the Punjab and Haryana High Court took cognisance of a petition challenging 8 per cent cap on annual increase in the school fee, the Division Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Shekher Dhawan has told the petitioner, the Independent School Association, to give details of expenditure, income and future projections.

The association has been directed to provide details with reference to its contention that the imposition of such a cap was “arbitrary and intrinsically violative” of Article 14 of the Constitution. The case will come up in the second week of May.

In the petition filed against Punjab and other respondents, the association, through counsel Tanu Bedi, had earlier blamed then SAD-BJP government for wooing voters by passing an Act which imposed 8 per cent cap.

The petitioner claimed that the cap, along with other factors, would prove detrimental to the growth of the private education sector. On behalf of the petitioner, Bedi claimed that Punjab was oblivious of the ground realities. It passed the impugned Act hurriedly, only as a populist measure just before the Assembly elections, the counsel added.

Bedi said the cap, myopically considering only the cost of inflation, would also put a ceiling on an increase in the salaries of staff and teachers, new methodology and infrastructure required to be introduced in the schools in accordance with the changing times.