Stay order revoked on school fee issue

Chennai, Oct 5  In a huge relief to thousands of parents in Tamil Nadu, the Chennai High Court today set aside a single Judge's order staying implementation of individual fee structure for private unaided schools drawn up by a government-appointed committee. "In our considered opinion, the impugned interim order passed by the single judge cannot be sustained in law and is liable to be set aside," a bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam said, while disposing a batch of appeals, including that by the state government, against the September 14 order. Even if the determination of the fee structure by the committee is assumed as provisional, the judge had erred in holding that it was violative of the principles of natural justice, the bench said. After the fee fixation orders had been communicated to individual private schools in May last, in all 6,400 institutions had submitted their objections in June and July.The institutions had collected the same fees fixed for the previous academic year for the current academic year. The bench noted that parents had complained that after the fee structure had been stayed they were being harassed to pay the difference between the fee collected and that originally fixed by respective institutions prior to the fee fixation committee's (FFC) order. The bench said the 6,400 schools, which had submitted objections to the May 5 order of the FFC, headed by a retired judge of the high court, would be entitled to pursue their objections before the committee, which should consider the same.