Private school fee regulation valid, rules Gujarat HC

Manas Dasgupta

Advertisement

Ahmedabad, December 27

The Vijay Rupani government began its second innings today with happy tidings as the Gujarat High Court validated its pre-election move to regulate fee structures in private schools to stop alleged “commercialisation of education”, benefitting parents of nearly 37 lakh students.

Giving its verdict on a bunch of 40-odd petitions by the managements of private schools, a division Bench comprising Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice VM Pancholi held constitutionally valid the Act passed by the state Assembly in March, providing for the setting up of fees regulation committees in different zones to decide the fee structure of each school.

The state government on its part had fixed the fees structure for private schools at Rs15,000, Rs25,000 and Rs27,000 per student per annum for the primary, secondary and higher secondary schools, respectively, and the schools that thought the amount was inadequate to run the institution.

The court held the state legislature was competent to regulate fee structures for all schools located in the state irrespective of their affiliations to the state or the CBSE and ICSE Boards. The court directed that the new fee structure be made effective from the 2018 academic year.