Pay 50% of due school fees or students will be expelled: Calcutta HC to parents

The division bench said that a section of the defaulting parents are financially stable and can pay the fees but are deliberately taking advantage of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The Calcutta High Court has directed parents to pay at least 50 per cent of their children's outstanding school fee within three weeks, failing which it will mull over allowing educational institutions to take action, including expelling students.

The court said that at a time like the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, when schools are the schools' needs against the students.

The court also said on Friday that a direction regarding students, who appeared for the Class 10 and 12 board exams and cleared them, must be made to respective boards to “suspend their qualification and certificates till the school fees are paid.”

The direction came after a division bench comprising justice IP Mukherji and justice Moushumi Bhattacharya expressed displeasure over a section of “financially stable parents” allegedly taking advantage of the ongoing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. The bench also asked schools coming under the ambit of this public interest litigation (PIL) to send each defaulting guardian a notice within a week citing the due fees to date from March last year.

The court will consider allowing schools to keep students from attending online as well as physical classes or even “remove [their names] from the roll of the school without further notice,” should a default emerge during the matter’s next hearing, the bench noted.

"We are sad and annoyed to know that although the economic situation is much better now than in 2020 and that most persons have learnt how to adjust their lives to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, quite a significant number of parents and guardians of the students of various schools and other teaching institutions have taken advantage of this order by not paying the school fees at all," the court said.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused financial distress to several parents, with many losing jobs and witnessing revenue loss in business, among others, but the high court pointed out that the school authorities are also finding it hard to operate the educational institutions during this unprecedented time.

Counsels representing the schools alleged that a section of parents was keeping from paying the fees based on an earlier order of the high court thereby causing difficulties to run the institutions.

Notably, the court was hearing a PIL filed by guardians of students of a school in the Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal that called for a reduction in school fees in view of the virus outbreak. The petitioners referred to an earlier order passed by the high court that directed no increase in the school fees during the 2021-22 financial year, and also that “non-essential charges for use of facilities not availed of would not be permissible.”

The PIL prayed for the application of that order to all students in all schools for the state for the current financial year.

The court, however, stated that if all education institutions are taken into account pertaining to the matter, the total amount of outstanding fees come down to several crores of rupees.

The bench added that some defaulting parents are “government servants who have suffered no loss of pay during this pandemic.” It said that a “substantial number of parents and guardians” have the capability to pay the school fees but are “deliberately not paying the dues.”

Noting that schools are finding it difficult to maintain themselves, there is a need to balance between the needs of the schools against the students’ needs. "The innocent students, we feel, should not be made to suffer for their errant parents and guardians," the bench stated.

The next hearing in the matter will be on September 2.

Meanwhile, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) Mamata Banerjee said on Thursday that her government has been considering reopening schools and colleges in the state on alternate days following the end of the Durga Puja vacation in November. “However, nothing has been finalised yet,” she told reporters during a meeting of Global Advisory Board (GAB), headed by Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, at the state secretariat, Nabanna.

Educational institutions in West Bengal have been shut since March this year due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

(With inputs from PTI)