New Delhi: Fee panel timelines not ‘sacrosanct’, education department tells Delhi High Court
The Directorate of Education (DoE) on Friday defended its decision to advance the constitution of school level fee regulation committees (SLFRCs) and told the Delhi high court that the timelines prescribed under the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Act, 2025 are not “sacrosanct” and do not form part of the Act’s basic structure.
The SLFRCs are to be constituted by individual schools to fix the fee for three academic terms, beginning 2026–27.
On February 1, the DoE issued a notification directing all schools to constitute SLFRCs by February 10, instead of July 15, as provided under the Act. The notification required schools to form the committees within 10 days and submit details of the proposed fee structure within 14 days of their constitution.
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A bench of chief justice DK Upadhyaya and justice Tejas Karia reserved orders on pleas filed by the Forum of Minority Schools, the Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools, Delhi Public School Society and the Rohini Educational Society seeking a stay on the decision and fixed the matter for pronouncing the order on Saturday.
Appearing for the DoE, additional solicitor general SV Raju and counsel Zoheb Hossain submitted that the objective of the Act is to prevent commercialisation and profiteering, and prescribed timelines can be modified as a means to achieve that objective.
“Dates are not sacrosanct and do not form the basic structure of the Act. The purpose of the Act is to prevent commercialisation and profiteering. For achieving this objective, dates can never be the basic structure. They are only the means to achieve the objective,” the law officer told the court.
The submission came in response to the petitioners’ contention that the February 1 order was contrary to the Act, which mandates constitution of the committees by July 15, and that any such change could only be effected through a legislative amendment and not by executive order.
On Thursday, the Delhi Public School Society contended that the Act mandates that at least one member of each committee must belong to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, or Socially and Educationally Backward Classes. DPS’s lawyer argued that compliance with this requirement would compel students and their families to disclose their caste, which is not normally collected at the stage of admission.
The law officer opposed this argument, asserting that DPS in its admission form itself included the column for caste.
On February 16, DoE defended the decision as a “one-time measure” to facilitate implementation of a regulated fee structure for the academic session 2026–27 commencing April 1.
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