A social media message has been doing the rounds that as per a High Court order (the message does not specify which High Court), private schools cannot charge any fee for the summer vacation months. These could be any months between April to July when the school is closed. The petition number mentioned is CP No. 5812 of 2015 and the decision of the order as per is 5th March, 2018. Let us first read the message in its entirety and then check its veracity.
High Court Order
Cp. no 5812 of 2015_so(G-111) SE 2L/PS/HC/3-859/18
Date 05-03-2018
No private school can charge any fee (including transportation fees) for the holiday months that is April or May or June or July after the final exams. Some School charges monthly or annual fees for 12 months, when schools are closed for vacation for 1 or 2 mnths.
If any school charges fee then there will be action taken against that school to the extent that it may lose its licence. Parents can complain to the police. If fee has been paid in advance then one may ask for refund or adjust with the next month/s fee.
In case the school does not refund or adjust the parents may lodge a complaint with the police. If police does not listen then complaint at the CM window.
Wake up citizens. Wake up, don’t allow School Management’s to loot Parents.
Share this information with all your friends and family, Groups, Pl fwd as much as possible till it reaches all Pvt School Managements..
As per this message, any private school that does not comply with the order can lose their licence. The message also exhorts parents to complain to the police and even to the Chief Minister if school authorities do not refund or adjust such fees.
We investigated this “Whatsapp” forward and found out that this order is not from India. A judgment with the same petition number and judgment date can be traced to our neighbour Pakistan. This case was filed at the Karachi Bench of the Sindh High Court in 2015. Many orders came in this case and final judgment was delivered in 2018.
A link to the judgment under the title ‘Judgment in CP 5812-2015 School Fees Case’ is listed on the official website of the Sindh High Court under the News and Notifications tab but on clicking on the link, the pdf of the judgment is not available, probably due to the non-maintenance of the website. However, copies of the judgment with the same petition number are available online on some educational websites and news websites as well.
Therefore, we can safely conclude that the above message is fake and does not apply to Indian schools and students. There is no bar on Indian schools for charging fees even for the months when the schools are closed for summer vacations.