Bar council will pay fees of 22 poor reserved category students

The Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa on Friday expressed willingness to extend financial assistance to 22 poor students belonging to the scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST) and VJNT categories as their parents have not been able to pay the fees of their school in Chembur for the past five years.

The Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa on Friday expressed willingness to extend financial assistance to 22 poor students belonging to the scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST) and VJNT categories as their parents have not been able to pay the fees of their school in Chembur for the past five years.

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The issue of reimbursement and arrears of fees was raised in a public interest litigation filed by Naresh Gosavi. The vegetable vendor from Chembur had approached the high court after his son and two nephews were forced to leave the Chembur English School on account of non-payment of tuition fees by the state government under the freeship scheme for SC, ST, special backward class (SBC) and VJNT students.

The state government had, in 2007, stopped reimbursing the tuition fees of SC, ST and VJNT students, as was being done under a welfare scheme formulated in December 1970.

Acting on Gosavi’s PIL, the court has granted protection to all the ST, SC and SBC students studying in private unaided schools across Maharashtra against removal from schools because of non-payment of their school fees.

Uday Warunjikar, member of the bar council, informed the division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice Niteen Jamdar that their members have in-principle agreed to provide financial assistance to the students.

The bench had requested the council to consider extending financial assistance to the students after finding that their parents, mostly daily wage labourers, were not in a position to pay the fees for the past five years, and were in need of financial assistance to clear the arrears.