PHC directs to seize accounts of striking schools

Court also directs PSRA to ensure the implementation of court orders within a month

PESHAWAR: As private schools remained closed for the second day, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) directed the provincial government to confiscate the administration and accounts of schools participating in the strike and violating court orders.

The court also directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Private Schools Regulatory Authority (PSRA) to ensure the implementation of court orders within a month

A two two-judge bench of the PHC, comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Muhammad Ayub Khan, heard a contempt of court petition filed by parents against private schools. The petition had been submitted after the schools went on a two-day strike on Monday.



During Tuesday’s hearing, the petitioners told the court that schools are still overcharging parents and the court’s order allowing only a three per cent year-on-year increase in fees, had been flagrantly violated.

Last November, the PHC had ruled that private educational institutions cannot raise fees by more than three per cent per annum. The court had also barred collection of other fees charged by private schools.

Moreover, the traffic police had been directed to fine schools owners should they find overloaded school vans and buses plying on the streets.

Advocate Abbas Khan Sangin, who appeared before the court on behalf of the parents, argued that court’s orders were not being implemented.



While the verdict had provided relief to parents from paying hefty fees, schools had now started to recoup these funds by imposing a plethora of different of charges. Moreover, he said that school owners were now holding a strike against the court’s orders.

“There is no one to implement the courts’ orders,” the lawyer pleaded before the court.

PSRA’s Managing Director Zafar Ali Shah told the bench that they have started taken actions against all those private schools who were not implementing the court’s orders.

Shah complained that the authority did not have proper staff, which made implementation of orders difficult. Despite that, he said that they were making efforts to regulate private schools.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2018.