Guj HC reserves order on pleas against school fee regulation

The Gujarat High Court today reserved its order on a bunch of petitions filed by over 2,000 self-financed schools challenging the state government's move to regulate fees through an Act passed in March.
A division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi reserved the order in the case after the private schools, including those affiliated to the state education board, Central Board of School Education (CBSE), and international boards submitted their arguments in writing as directed by the court.
The private schools had challenged the Gujarat Self Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, passed in March this year, arguing that it is unconstitutional because self- financed schools get no aid from the state and hence the government has no jurisdiction over such schools.

Schools which had challenged the Act were exempted from approaching the Fee Regulatory Committee by the order of the high court.
As per the rules, all private schools that charge fees more than what has been prescribed in the Act were required to submit their proposal with the Committee by May 25.
The state government has defended the Act saying it a valid piece of legislation to prevent commercialisation of education.

The government had said in an affidavit filed before the court that "the Act is a valid piece of regulation and the Rules are not in any manner arbitrary, unguided, unconstitutional and interfering in the administration of the SFIs."

"The objective of the Act is to see that no capitation fee is charged and also the fee fixed and collected in the SFIs is not exorbitant and is not amounting to profiteering and commercialisation of education," it had said.
The Act is only a regulatory measure and does not take away the powers of the education institutions to fix their own fee, it had said.
According to the state government, out of 15,927 schools to be regulated under the Act, 11,174 charge lower fees than what has been determined by the government, 841 have sought for determination of fees by the committee, and 2,363 did not file any affidavit nor did they submit any proposal before the committee, while 2,385 have challenged it before the high court.

The annual fee structure prescribed in the Act is Rs 15,000, Rs 25,000 and Rs 27,000 for primary, secondary and higher secondary schools respectively.