Punjab and Haryana High Court have directed the Chandigarh administration along with Punjab and Haryana governments to ensure the smooth issuance of school leaving certificate to the students without creating any impediments.
Many parents are seeking admission in the government schools in accordance with the financial hardships faced by them.
Single judge High Court bench has passed the order on Monday while hearing the petition filed by Independent Schools’ Association and other school managements challenging the Chandigarh administration earlier orders. The UT administration had asked all the schools to collect only the tuition fees and avoid increasing the fee structure during the 2020-2021 period.
At first, the city beautiful’s administration has directed the school managements to rescheduled the last date for depositing fee by the students to be one month later from the date of schools reopening.
But, in the later orders passed, the authorities had permitted the private schools to collect the tuition fees only excluding all other charges and fixed the last date of fee submission on every 15th day of the month.
In May, the administration had directed the schools not to struck off the name of any student and also not to deprive any student of online classes scheduled in nationwide lockdown.
The petition moved by various schools stated that the Chandigarh administration is misusing the power. They also clarified in the petition that they had incurred exorbitant expenditures on the online classes infrastructure and also they have to pay the salaries to the teaching and non-teaching staff.
“The educational institutions are not entitled to profiteering,” stated Chandigarh administration. In its reply to the petition on Monday, the administration cited that the issue is already pending in the Supreme Court and also contended that CBSE provides that by law fee should be charged as per government orders.
“Owing to the national lockdown since March 25, 2020, the public at large are facing hardships and have been financially crippled having lost sources of livelihood and/or loss of business. The lockdown still continues and the schools and all educational institutions are lying closed,” stated UT administration in its reply.
The reply further stated, “The schools being run by proclaimed charitable trusts cannot be allowed to feed on the misery of the financially crippled parents.” The Chandigarh administration also said that no details have been provided by schools with respect to any financial liability.
