Schools have become money spinning rackets: Bombay HC

Observing that schools these days are taking law into their own hands and have become a "money spinning racket", the Bombay High Court today issued notice to a private school in south Mumbai for expelling a minor boy from the school without according proper reasons.
A division bench of justices V M Kanade and M S Sonak took cognisance of a letter written to the high court by the father of the 12-year-old boy against HVB Global Academy School in Marine Lines in south Mumbai.
According to the child's father, his son was expelled from the school as he had questioned and objected to paying a sum of Rs 50,000 in cash to the school for purchase of uniform and other stationery items.

"These days schools have become a money-spinning racket. Schools have started taking law into their own hands," Justice Kanade said.
According to the letter written by the boy's father Santosh Mehta, he had approached the school for admitting his son in Class VII.
"The school initially quoted a fee of Rs 1,09,500 which I paid and have a receipt of. However, later the school demanded Rs 50,000 more in cash for uniform, school books, bags and other stationery items. When I objected to pay the extra sum, the school authorities started threatening me and my family," the letter alleged.

Mehta further claimed that the school authorities fraudulently threatened his wife into signing a blank paper, based on which the school issued a transfer certificate and expelled his son from the school.

"I approached the office of the Commissioner of Child Right Protection of Maharashtra and also the Deputy Director of Education. The deputy director of education in February this year directed the school principal to reinstate my child. But when I sent my son to school the security guards stopped him and refused to send him in," the letter alleged.
The high court today issued notice to the school and said it would like to hear the school's side of the story and posted the matter for hearing on July 11.