Demanding fees for facilities that students cannot use is profiteering: PIL in Bombay High Court seeks 50% reduction in school fees

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed Maharashtra government to file its response to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking a direction to schools to collect only 50 percent of the annual fees for the academic year 2020-21. .The petitioners, which include Member of Legislative Assembly Atul Dattatray Bhatkhalkar and Mumbai lawyer Siddharth Sharma submitted that the fees charged by the schools for the year 2020-21 remained as was normally charged and did not change despite the changing factors like the COVID pandemic.The petitioners while acknowledging that schools may have incurred costs for developing online class process, maintained that such expenses would still be less than the expenditure incurred by parents to ensure their children had electronic devices, internet connectivity etc to attend such online classes.The petitioners claimed that the management of schools should not be allowed to charge fees for activities and facilities which could not be availed by students due to the circumstances beyond their control in the pandemic. The petition stated that since schools did not open for physical classes for a substantially long period during 2020-21, it is "apparent that the school managements will have saved overheads and requiring costs on various items". ""Demanding fees in respect of overheads on such activities (which students cannot avail) is nothing short of indulging in profiteering and commercialization. Overheads and operations cost would be nothing but an amount undeservedly earned by the school without offering such facility to the students during the relevant period," the petition stated..The petitioners further submitted that Maharashtra had issued a directive on May 8 barring schools from hiking school fees for the academic year 2020-21 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.The High Court had imposed a stay on the directive in June 2020 but vacated the stay in their final order of March 2021.The Court had, however, clarified in the final order that no student would be debarred from attending classes or examinations on account of non-payment of the “increased component of fees” nor will their reports be withheld. However, the schools have failed to comply with the directions against debarring students and withholding results, the petitioners contended. This, they claimed, prompted them to approach the High Court. .The petitioners claimed that the provisions of the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulations of Fees) Act and the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulations of Fees) Rules have not been acted upon by the State government as the Divisional Fee Regulatory Committee have not been constituted by them.Even the schools have not constituted the executive committee, the petitioners stated.They, therefore, sought stricter implementation of the statutory provisions under which the school fees are approved..A Bench of Justices SP Deshmukh and GS Kulkarni were informed by the Government Pleader Geeta Shastri that a Divisional Fee Regulatory Committee was constituted by the State through a notification on June 7, 2021. She was granted leave by the Court to place on record the information with regard to the functioning and address of this authority.[Read Order]