Court round-up: Unregistered private schools, their high fees challenged

Islamabad High Court seeks report from top city officials.

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday issued notices to top government officials in response to a petition challenging the inaction against unregistered private schools in the city and their high fees.

Justice Muhammad Anwar Khan Kasi while hearing a public interest petition issued notices to Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Secretary Riffat Shaheen, Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) Director General (DG) Dr Shahnaz Anjum Riaz, Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PEIRA) Chairman Atif Kayani and Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman Tahir Shahbaz seeking their comments within two weeks.

Advocate Abu Bakar Sehri filed a petition challenging the existence of over 400 unregistered private schools and colleges running in Islamabad. He maintained that educational institutions charged thousands of rupees from the general public in the name of admission and monthly fees, and there are no checks and balances placed by the high authorities.

Quoting the PEIRA Ordinance 2009, which says, “It is expedient to regulate and promote the functioning of private educational institutions in Islamabad and to provide for the registration of such institutions ensuring adequate transparency and proper discipline in all matters,” the petitioner argued that private institutions had violated the ordinance.

He told the court that since 2009, no steps were taken to regulate private institutions and that many influential families are running schools without registering them with PEIRA.

His prayer was for the court to direct the respondents to take effective measures for the regulation of private institutions.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui directed the CDA to submit a detailed report on an illegal kiosk in Islamabad within three days. During the course of the hearing, the CDA’s counsel Nazir Jawad requested the court for more time after the bench had order the authority to remove the illegal kiosk allegedly owned by Khalid Malik, the brother of Interior Minister Rehman Malik. The petition was filed by a resident of Sector F-7.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2012.