Bombay HC, recently came through public interest litigation with the comprising bench of Dipankar Datta and justice GS Kulkarni, asking for the private schools to deal with the fees issues directly with the parents instead of debarring the students from attending the online classes and turning it into the legal battle.
In this current pandemic situation, every people and organization are facing tough financial trouble in society. Regarding some of the private schools are pressurizing students to pay their fees by debarring them from the academic facilities. Due to this students are habituated and committed to their work in virtual mode irrespective of the internet issues and distractive surroundings. The main contention of the petitioner is that the private schools are continued to charge the same fees as pre-pandemic despite students are not being able to use the facilities of school physically. With this consideration, the order was passed by the Bombay HC seeking direction to the private schools both aided and unaided to collect only the half amount of fees in the year of 2020-21, though some schools were failed to follow such order passed by HC so came up with petition.
The division bench of Bombay HC stated that the fee is not something that should be turned into a legal issue. This can be amicably settled and worked out. The management can talk face to face with the parents and resolve it there is no need to bring it to resolve legally. Moreover, the state government had informed the court that divisional fees regulatory committees had been set up the various places like Nasik, Pune, and Mumbai and so on to resolve the dispute between the parents and management regarding the fees issues.
Further, the court added that this is not a happy situation. In a pandemic when many families are facing problems, the approach should be different. The pandemic had not only impacted rural India also urban India where there is a serious downfall of the economy.
Regarding these school issues, it would be more beneficial for the college students, if the state or central government take such action regarding the fees issue and pressurizing students to pay and adding additional fines for not payment of fees in this crucial situation private universities. So it would be very much thankful for the government to take private colleges also into consideration than focusing only on private schools. Since every institution comes under the root called education and future of the students, either it is a college or school, equal importance must be given by the government.
-Report by AJISHA