Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 29: The State High Court today issued notice to the authorities including those of private schools on a petition seeking waiver of fee of the students for the months during which they were closed due to unrest in Kashmir.
Justice MH Attar today issued a notice to Government and private schools in response to a petition challenging the “collection of fee by the private schools in Kashmir” for the period they remained closed during the current unrest, and directed the listing of the petition on December 6.
The petition filed by advocate S H Thakur submitted before the court that authorities are not even entertaining the cheques and are asking cash in hand from the parents of the wards. He prayed for quashing the “announcement made by president Private Schools’ Association for the collection of the fee from July 2016 till date”.
The petition said that the announcement made by the Association is without authority, illegal, unfair and against the mandate of law. It was also submitted that direction be issued for implementation of SRO 123 issued by the Government. “Besides a direction to the chairman, pay fixation committee to issue necessary order on the subject of collection of the tuition fee for the period when the private schools remained defunct”, read the petition.
The petitioner pleaded that he was compelled by the circumstances and exploitation of the parents by the private schools who have been forced to deposit the fee, despite the schools remaining closed from July 8, 2016.
Pertinently, the academic session 2015-16 started in the month of November 2015. The schools closed for winter vacations on Dec 3, 2015 and reopened on March 14, 2016.
The schools worked till July 5, 2016. According to Thakur, the total working period of the schools during the entire session comes to about three months when they “are demanding the fee for the whole year”.
The petitioner pleaded that the private schools were closed like Government schools and no efforts were put in by them for restoring the educational activities nor they took any initiative of their own to start the schools and like other commercial establishments they too remained completely closed from July 8. “Some schools uploaded the assignments worth name in the month of September to justify the collection of fee and no teaching activity was carried out by them”, He says.
It has also pleaded before the court that the parents are supposed to pay the tuition fee subject to the condition that their children are taught by the teacher, the school renders the service of teaching. “But when the service is not made available by the private schools, how come they are entitled to charge the fee from the parents?”
The petition said that respondent no. 5 (president private schools association) without having any authority in law is issuing the orders for the collection of fee when he has neither the legal authority nor statutory authority to do so.
“The respondent no. 6 (Minister for Education in Jammu and Kashmir) is watching as spectator to the acts of respondent no 5 indicating clearly that they are hand in glove with each other. The matter is serious one and needs to be probed and action initiated under the relevant laws against both respondents,” the petitioner said.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel