Raipur: Private schools here have been permitted by Chhattisgarh High Court to collect tuition fees sans any hike. The high court passed this order following the state government’s diktat that barred the schools from collecting fees.
In a judgment passed by Justice P Sam Koshy on Monday, the high court quashed the state government order which was challenged by Bilaspur Private School Association.
The director, Public Instructions, Government of Chhattisgarh, had ordered on April 1, asking all private institutions to not collect the school fees and had also asked them not to coerce for recovery.
“The Association had challenged the order of Director Public Instructions in the High Court. The association claimed that the private school were receiving no monetary support from state government and fees was the only source of their income,” counsel for the association Ashish Shrivastava said.
However, the judgement asked schools not to hold salaries of the teaching and non-teaching staff. “..The fees that the respective institutions shall collect the salary of the staff, both teaching and non teaching must be met first. No institution shall be permitted to withhold the salary part nor shall the schools reduce the salary of any of their existing staff from what these staff were drawing prior to the lockdown period,” the judgment said.
The court, in its judgment, also asked the educational institutions to develop a mechanism to address the situation.
“This court at this juncture however would like to direct the petitioner and the members of the petitioner association to evolve some mechanism to cater to exceptional situations where a parent is not able to pay the fees for some genuine reasons. Accordingly, it is directed that in the event if any of the parent is facing any acute financial crisis whereby there being no means whatsoever to pay the school fees, let such parent/parents approach the respective school authorities, who in turn shall consider the same and if required can also get it duly verified or scrutinized on their own asking the parent to provide such necessary information with which it could be assessed, whether he is in a position to pay the fees or not, by seeking such information like financial status of the parents, the income details of the parents so also the assets in the name of the parents etc. and thereafter pass a suitable order,” the judgment said.
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