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Parents protesting private school fee increases countrywide: continuous agitation & litigation

with the new academic year scheduled to begin in July, the in Gujarat, 75 schools are being investigated for allegedly
DPS management expelled 32 students for non-payment of levying fees in contravention of the Gujarat Self-Financed
contracted fees for almost a year. This prompted parents of Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, 2017; in Punjab, the high
the students to file for a stay order on the ground that the court has prohibited any fees or annual charge increases.
management was engaged in “profiteering” from education. School fees litigation is also pending in Haryana, Odisha
With counsel for the school contending that DPS, Dwarka and Jammu & Kashmir.
has run up an accumulated debt of Rs.31 crore during the Prolonged and continuous litigation on the issue of the
past decade and that parents of the 32 expelled students right of private school promoters and managements to de-
owed Rs.42 lakh by way of fee arrears, on May 19, Justice termine fees payable, is rooted in ideological battles fought
Sachin Datta of the Delhi high court reserved his verdict in the political arena in post-independence India. Despite
on the issue of expulsion of the students for non-payment the Constitution of India promulgated in 1950, bestowing
of contracted fees. a fundamental right to “practice any profession, or to carry
Similar litigation against private schools for levying ‘ex- on any occupation, trade or business,” upon all citizens, free
orbitant’ tuition and related fees is pending in courts across India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded
the country. In Uttar Pradesh, a committee appointed by then dominant Congress party to develop the economy ac-
the Supreme Court is investigating the financial condition cording to the tenets of a “socialistic pattern of society”.
of private schools that allegedly charged “excessive” fees This resulted in all economic activities, occupations and
during the Covid-19 pandemic when school campuses were businesses being subject to State control.
shut down and teaching-learning went online. In Madhya Justices of the Supreme and high courts fell in line, es-
Pradesh, the high court has granted interim relief to private pecially after the mid-1960s when Nehru’s super-socialist
schools which have been ordered to refund fees collected in daughter Indira Gandhi was elected prime minister. She
violation of 2017 fee regulation rules stipulated by the state packed the Supreme Court with judges “committed” to so-
government. In Telangana, the high court has issued no- cialist ideology. They dutifully endorsed nationalisation of
tices to the Central and state governments following admis- banks, coal, electricity industries and multiplication of pub-
sion of a writ petition protesting high private school fees; lic sector enterprises (PSEs). Managed by business-illter-

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