SHC bars private schools from raising fees by over 5%

Over 100 parent­s of school childr­en had moved court agains­t 'unilat­eral fee hikes'

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court ruled on Monday that private schools cannot increase tuition fees beyond 5% per annum.

A three-member larger bench, comprising justices Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Ashraf Jehan, heard the case on Monday.

The bench also issued notices to the federal government on the imposition of income tax on school fees.

Over 100 parents of school children had moved the court against 'unilateral fee hikes'.

The counsel for the petitioners said teacher salaries constituted less than 50% of school overheads. The counsel argued that the revenue generated by the school should be taken into account while calculating its expenditure. He said the state was empowered to prevent schools from making excessive profit.

"While private schools can fix [tuition] fee for three years, the provincial government has the final say," said the additional advocate-general. Parents Action Committee's Faisal Siddiqui, while speaking to the media after the hearing, said that they were successful today.



Each private school is prohibited from charging over 5% fee. The private schools are indulged in the contempt of court since 2005, he said. "We challenged them since they were violating the law," the lawyer said.

Background

Unchecked fee hikes first came into the limelight after parents of students started staging demonstrations nationwide in 2017.

In April this year, a two-member bench of the SHC had referred the case of school fees to the SHC chief justice (CJ), recommending the formation of a larger bench to hear the case.

The bench, comprising Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi and Justice Ashraf Jehan, was hearing a petition filed by parents of students studying at four schools, including Beaconhouse School, The City School and Foundation Public School.



A lawyer representing the petitioners had argued that the SHC had earlier decided that the 2001 law which regulated schools was intact.

He added that until a new policy was formed, schools could not raise their fees. He had informed the bench that some schools, despite the stay order against increase in fee, had issued vouchers with more than 5% increase in the fees.

The petitioners' lawyer asked the court to initiate contempt of court proceedings against those schools which raised their fees by more than 5%.

Kamal Azfar, counsel for Beaconhouse School, contended that the court had ordered the government to make a new policy in consultation with schools. He refuted the argument of the petitioners' lawyer, who said that an increase of more than 5 per cent in the school fees was illegal according to a past judgment of the SHC. Azfar claimed that the Supreme Court (SC) had annulled the SHC judgment.

The bench remarked that it was a tragedy that the government was not performing its duty and government schools were in a sorry state of affairs. Justice Abbasi observed that a comprehensive policy was needed so that parents did not feel burdened in paying school fees of their children.

There should be a comprehensive policy to govern all affairs of schools, the bench had observed.

Justice Jehan questioned if there was any justification for Rs200,000 collected by schools on account of registration and admission fees.
Additional Advocate-General Shabbir Shah had said people were happy when they heard the news that they would not have to play fees for the month of June and July due to court orders, to which the bench remarked that the SHC verdict had no mention of June and July fees.

The bench also remarked that the apex court had apparently only referred the case back to the high court for fresh hearing without annulling the previous SHC order.

After hearing the arguments of both the sides, the bench had decided to recommend to the SHC CJ to form a larger bench to hear the matter.