Delhi HC rejects plea against pvt schools, call petition a ‘publicity’ litigation

The Delhi high court on Wednesday imposed a cost of ₹20,000 on a public interest petitioner while dismissing their plea seeking action against the private schools

The Delhi high court on Wednesday imposed a cost of ₹20,000 on a public interest petitioner while dismissing their plea seeking action against the private schools that have allegedly been overcharging and denying online classes to students during the Covid-19 pandemic. The court said that this was a publicity” interest litigation and the petitioner had not done any homework before filing the plea.

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The court was hearing a plea by the Anti-Corruption Council of India Trust, through advocate Ashok Kumar Singh, claiming that according to news reports, several schools are allegedly collecting fee under various heads, other than tuition fee, and are denying access to online classes to those students who are unable to pay the fee.

It contended that such actions are in violation of the Delhi government’s directions to schools to not charge anything more than tuition fee during the pandemic when all schools are shut .

A bench of chief justice DN Patel and justice Prateek Jalan said the petitioner has not given any information regarding a particular school or how much fee was being charged in excess as alleged. It said that the whole plea was a “bogus matter” wherein vague terms have been used by the petitioner and no details have been given about the schools denying online classes to students.

“The petition claims that ‘proper’ online classes are not being held…What is the meaning of proper?... It is such a vague term. Anything can be termed as not being proper,” the bench said.

“Without doing any homework, this petition has been filed. No details have been given. It appears that this is a publicity interest litigation and not a public interest litigation (PIL),” it added.

The bench said the litigation cost f ₹20,000 must be deposited within four weeks and would be used for access to justice programmes.

It had claimed that according to the Delhi Parents Association there are 76 private schools which are in violation of the Delhi government direction.

During the hearing, advocate Gautam Narayan, additional standing counsel of the Delhi government, told the court that the government has issued two circulars --- on April 18 and August 28 -- where the directions were given to schools on the collection of fees while asking them only to charge tuition fee. He said that the orders are still in force till the end of the pandemic.

“Schools are finding it impossible to manage their expenses with the meagre tuition fee being paid by a few, and on top of that, there are those having nothing to do with education, wanting some publicity. This culture of making schools the soft target and expecting everything for free will very soon spell doom for education in the city,” said advocate Kamal Gupta, counsel for the Action Committee for 400 Private schools.

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