Hyderabad School Parents Association file PIL in HC to establish 'Regulatory Mechanism' for regulating fee structure of private schools

The Hyderabad School Parents Association, represented by its Joint Secretary K Venkat Sainath filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), seeking the intervention of the court to direct the State Government to establish a regulatory mechanism in the State of Telangana for regulating fee structure of Private unaided schools.

He brought to the notice of the court in the PIL case, that the absence of a Regulatory Mechanism to regulate school fees of private unaided schools in the state of Telangana gives rise to arbitrary discretion powers to private unaided schools to determine tuition fees and other fee components, which is arbitrary in nature in violation of Article 14 and Article 21A (Right to Education) of Indian Constitution and in violation of provisions of Telangana Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admissions and Prohibition of capitation Fee) Act 1983 and Telangana Education Act 1982 and consequently direct respondents herein, Principal Secretary, School Education Department and the Director of School Education to come up with a regulatory mechanism to regulate school fees of private unaided schools in the state of Telangana to prevent profiteering and commercialisation in school education.

The petitioners further submitted that the neighbouring state Andhra Pradesh has established Andhra Pradesh School Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission under Andhra Pradesh School Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission Act 2019. Further Andhra Pradesh government had issued GO Ms No 53 dated: 24-08-2021 whereby fee structure for Nursery to Class X in private un-aided schools is fixed for the three academic years from 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.

Further liberty is given to private unaided schools to approach the Andhra Pradesh School Education Regulatory Commission to enhance school fees for valid reasons in accordance with expenditure incurred by the private schools. The petitioner asked the court to direct the respondents herein to modify the GO Rt No 75, dated 28-6-2021, whereby 40 per cent of tuition fees can be collected by the private unaided schools for the academic year 2021-22 as COVID-19 pandemic relief and publish in the public domain the Report of the Thirupathi Rao Committee constituted by the government in 2017.