The Delhi government can regulate fees charged by schools but only to ensure that such schools do not indulge in "profiteering or commercialisation of education or in charging capitation fee", the Delhi High Court ruled on Thursday. A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela dismissed appeals filed by the Directorate of Education (DoE) against a single-judge order from last February. The single-judge bench had set aside the department’s notice to two private schools against increase in the school fee. The DoE in August 2018 had directed Bluebells School International, Kailash Colony, a private unaided school, not to increase any fees as the school proposed a hike for the academic session 2017-2018. A similar order was passed by DoE in April 2019 for Lilawati Vidya Mandir, Senior Secondary School. Both the schools were also directed to refund the fees charged in excess of what the DoE considers to be the maximum fees chargeable from the students. Even as the single-judge bench quashed the orders and said that the DoE did not cite the findings related to profiteering, it granted the department the liberty to take any decision for perceived infraction by the schools of the provisions of Delhi School Education Act, 1973 or Delhi School Education Rules, 1973 if violations were found. Upholding the single judge’s order, the division bench on Thursday reasoned, “It is not that the fees to be charged by the schools cannot be regulated by the government; however, regulation is permitted only to ensure that such schools do not indulge in profiteering or commercialisation of education or in charging capitation fee." "The regulatory measures, which can be adopted by the government, would also encompass in its folds the measures to check that unaided schools do not utilise the profits for a purpose other than for the benefit of educational institution and that such fee structure must be fixed keeping in mind the infrastructure and other facilities available, salaries to be paid to the teachers and staff and future plans of expansion or betterment of the institution,” it added. “.the scope of interference of DoE with the fixation of fees charged by an unaided recognised school is restricted to a case in which the school engages in charging of capitation fee or indulges in profiteering,” the bench ruled.
