Panel recommends refund of fees by 58 private schools

A Delhi High Court-appointed panel has recommended that 58 unaided private schools in the national capital refund "unjustly" hiked fees to parents.
"The committee has recommended refund of fee unjustly hiked by 58 schools. Among them are 11 schools, where the committee, besides recommending the refund, has also recommended special inspection to be carried out by the Directorate of Education (DoE)," the three-member panel headed by former Rajasthan High Court Chief Justice Anil Dev Singh said.
The second interim report, filed before a bench of justices B D Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul, said the panel examined the fee hike by 148 schools and found that there was no need to recommend refund of fees by 63 schools.

"In respect of 63 schools, the committee has not recommended any intervention as the schools were found to have either not hiked the fee in pursuance of the order dated February 11, 2009 issued by the DoE or the fee hiked was found to be within or near about the tolerance limit of 10 per cent or the fee hike was found to be justified, considering the additional burden on account of implementation of Sixth Pay Commission report," the report said.
The panel, in its first report which was filed on August 23, last year, had examined the fee hike undertaken by 200 schools and recommended that out of them, 64 schools be asked to refund the excess fees charged by them in 2009 along with an interest of 9 per cent to the parents of the students.

The report was filed in pursuance of an earlier order of the court which is hearing a PIL of NGO Social Jurist accusing private unaided schools of raising fees in an "unjust manner".