The power tussle over schools reached Calcutta High Court on Friday, with the state government drive to regulate the functioning of private, unaided English-medium institutions being challenged.

The eight petitioner schools are all affiliated to the Delhi-based Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations that conducts the ICSE and ISC examinations.

They argued that the state government has no right to ?intervene? in their functioning as they do not avail of ?a single paisa? from it.

Arunabha Ghosh and Amalesh Roy, counsels for the petitioners, pointed out that private English-medium schools that do not receive any form of financial assistance from the government have been categorised as ?listed?.

There are, however, 67 other private English-medium schools that are mostly run by Christian missionaries and receive government assistance by way of dearness allowances for their teachers and employees. They are categorised as Anglo-Indian schools.

The Anglo-Indian schools are steered by certain guidelines of the government, something that is unacceptable to the petitioner schools, which all fall into the listed category.

?How can the government impose the rules and regulations meant for Anglo-Indian schools on listed schools?? argued Ghosh.

The eight schools have also challenged the government?s recent directive asking all ICSE and CBSE schools to provide data on every aspect of their functioning, from admission policy to add-on facilities.

?We are not bound to follow this administrative order of the government, which is not a statutory one, because we are answerable only to the Council as far as our internal administrative matters are concerned,? they pointed out.

The government, they added, had no jurisdiction to seek information on internal matters like location, student strength, academic performance, pay scales, and, of course, tuition fees.