Delhi Govt defends school fee regulation law in HC, says it curbs profiteering

DoE, in a March 6 affidavit, stated that the Act introduces checks and balances on fee-fixation powers while preserving the authority of school managements.

The Delhi government’s Directorate of Education has opposed before the Delhi High Court petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Act, 2025, arguing that the law does not take away the power of school managements to determine fees but merely introduces a “reasonable mechanism” to curb commercialisation and profiteering.

Delhi High Court. (PTI file)

DoE, in an affidavit filed March 6, stated that the Act introduces checks and balances on fee-fixation powers while preserving the authority of school managements. The school management still places its fee proposal before the school-level fee regulation committee (SLFRC), the affidavit said.

The affidavit, which a bench of chief justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and justice Tejas Karia will consider Thursday, states that if management disagrees with other SLFRC members, it can present the matter at two levels if aggrieved – first to the Divisional Fee Regulatory Committee and subsequently to the Revision Committee.

DoE contended before the high court that the 2025 Act has been enacted to curb commercialisation in accordance with the Centre’s National Education Policy, 2020.

“The impugned act only introduces checks and balances to the exercise of the power. It is still the management which places fee proposal before the SLFRC. Impugned act does not take away power of the management to set fees, but only creates a reasonable mechanism for curbing commercialisation and profiteering,” the affidavit stated.

It added, “The impugned act and rules, reasonably accommodate the legitimate commercial interest of schools and endeavours to include all relevant commercial factors and parameters in the process of approval of fees.”

The affidavit was filed in response to 17 petitions by various school associations, including the Action Committee Unaided Private Schools, Forum of Minority Schools, and NGO Justice for All, challenging the Act’s constitutionality. The petitioners argued that the 2025 Act violates their fundamental right to practice any profession or carry on any occupation by taking away their autonomy to set fees.

In its 81-page affidavit, DoE rejected petitioners’ contention that the 2025 Act conflicts with the central Delhi School Education Act, 1973. It argued that while the 1973 Act is a general law for organisational and administrative supervision of schools, the 2025 Act specifically ensures transparency in regulation and fixation of fees collected by the schools in the Capital.

“The impugned act has been enacted to fill the existing vacuum in so far as the regulation and collection of fees is concerned. The DSE 1973, does not provide for a mechanism for fee determination. Hence, there is no parallel fee-determining mechanism that would be operating. Hence, there is no repugnancy between the two acts,” the affidavit stated.

One of the grounds on which the petitioners challenged the constitutionality of the 2025 Act was that it violates the rights of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Countering this argument, DoE stated that regulatory measures aimed at preventing commercialisation and profiteering do not infringe the fundamental rights guaranteed to minorities under Article 30 of the Constitution.

Responding to the March 6 affidavit, the Action Committee Unaided Private Schools, in its rejoinder filed on Wednesday through advocate Kamal Gupta, argued that the 2025 Act, makes a direct encroachment into a field already governed by the central law – the DSE Act. It contended that by prescribing heads of fees, mode of calculation, and permissible expenses, the Act amounts to a direct inroad into an area already occupied by existing central legislation.

“The malafide intent behind the unanimity required in the decision-making of the SLFRC, unheard of in any adjudicatory process, is to make a false show of the parents having participated in fee fixation process,” the rejoinder stated.