Ranchi, May 29: Jharkhand Education Tribunal (JET) today read out the riot act to “private schools” by announcing a slew of directives. Some schools have already challenged JET’s authority to interfere in day-to-day administration and their plea is pending before the high court, which will hear the writ on June 13.

But JET toughened its stand today by hitting schools where it hurts them most, their finances. While most private schools treat the secondary and the higher-secondary sections as different entities and charge admission fees from students passing out from Class X and getting into Class Class XI, JET directed that if one passed out from Class X from the same school, no re-admission fees be charged.

In addition to the directive that annual-fee hikes cannot exceed 10 per cent, it tightened the screws further by ordering that schools should not collect bus fare for all the 12 months. Taking into account the holidays, JET both summer and in the winter, JET directed the schools to charge fare for only 11 months. By doing so, it chose to ignore the schools’ plea that despite the holidays, the schools still have to pay for the bus-staff and for maintenance.

JET also dictated that students be made to pay for the duration of their stay.

Students who leave in mid-session, it held, must be refunded for the remaining session. While schools have been allowed to increase bus fare by Rs 25 every year, JET imposed a rider by directing that any reduction in fuel-prices should lead to a corresponding reduction in the fare.

JET had earlier directed schools to ensure that buses are not overloaded and to refrain from making it mandatory to parents to buy uniform and textbooks from the school or from shops specified by them.

Most of the schools have also complied with these directions asking them to ensure that first-aid boxes are available in buses, that drivers have no record of traffic-rule violation, that safe provisions be made to keep school bags etc.

Today’s orders followed a report submitted by a committee yesterday that went into figures provided by 27 schools, which also explained the reasons for fee-hike and for increasing the bus-fare. But apparently the explanations failed to satisfy either the committee or the tribunal.

The committee was initially formed in April and the schools asked to furnish details within a week. They were then granted two more extensions.