Petition on exam registration fee: LHC suspends ‘illegal’ notification

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday suspended a notification issued by the education boards to raise the registration fee for grade 9 examinations and ordered the boards to issue roll numbers to those who had paid fees at last year’s tariffs. Justice Ayesha A Malik passed the order on petitions moved by students of private schools. The court was informed on Friday that the students had deposited Rs700 as registration fee for the upcoming examinations. They said once the fee had been deposited, the education boards raised it by Rs200 and stopped issuance of roll number slips to hundreds of students. The petitioners’ lawyers argued that the notification could not apply to the students who had already deposited the Rs700 fee. They had also requested the court to set aside the notification for being discriminatory as the students of government schools were not paying the raised fee. A legal advisor for the education boards told the court that the increase of Rs200 in the registration fee was approved in a meeting of the committee of boards. The court suspended the notification declaring it illegal. The court further directed the educational boards to immediately issue roll number slips to all grade 9 students.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 2^nd, 2013.