No Stay on Delhi High Court Order Allowing Private Schools to Collect Additional Charges from Students: SC
NEW DELHI, June 28: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the Delhi High Court order allowing private unaided schools to collect annual and development charges from students for the period after the lockdown ended in the national capital last year.
It, however, said dismissing the appeal of the Delhi government would not come in the adjudication of its plea by a division bench of the high court scheduled to hear the case on July 12 as nothing on merits have been recorded by it.
A bench comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Aniruddha Bose did not agree with the submission of the Directorate of Education (DoE) of Delhi government that it has the power to regulate the levy of fees by private unaided schools and the high court judgement permitting such a levy of annual and development charges be stayed.
“We are not inclined to grant you the stay,” the bench told senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Delhi government, vehemently seeking the stay of the judgment saying, lakhs and lakhs of parents will be affected.
“Considering the fact that the division bench is hearing the matter on July 12, all the contentions remain open and can be raised before the division bench and the dismissal of the petition does not reflect upon merits of the case,” the bench said.
On May 31, a single judge bench of the high court had quashed the office orders of April and August 2020 issued by DoE of the Delhi government forbidding and postponing collection of annual charges and development fees.
The Delhi government then filed the intra-court appeal before a division bench of the high court which on June 7 issued notices on the plea but had refused to stay its single-judge order allowing private unaided schools to collect annual and development charges from students.
Aggrieved by the refusal of stay, the DoE moved the top court saying that grave injustice would be done if the stay was not granted as the government had already allowed such institutions to keep collecting 100 per cent of tuition fees. At the outset, senior advocates Shyam Divan and N K Kaul, appearing for bodies representing private schools, opposed the Delhi government’s appeal.
They said the single judge bench of the high court had taken note of an apex court’s judgement in the ‘Indian School, Jodhpur vs State of Rajasthan, in which it was held that the schools shall collect annual fees with a deduction of 15 per cent and had applied that in the instant case.
(Manas Dasgupta)
