The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) headquarters has sent letters to all its regional offices informing them that schools wrongly claiming their affiliation with the board would be barred from applying for two years.

Sharing this information, Rashmi Tripathi, the CBSE regional officer (Bihar and Jharkhand), said her office received a letter in this regard on April 1.

She said the details of the directive had been uploaded on the CBSE website from where the schools concerned had been asked to check the details.

"Schools, which are yet to be affiliated with the board, would have to submit an application latest by June this year. Schools whose affiliation with the board expired on March 31 this year would have to follow suit," she said.

CBSE grants affiliation to schools for five years at a time. The schools are supposed to get the affiliation renewed every five years.

In case of schools up to Class VI, the board gives provisional affiliation for five years and in case of upgrade to higher classes, fresh application for affiliation is supposed to be submitted to the board.

A source said it had come to the notice of the board that several schools after getting affiliation once were not applying for fresh affiliation, violating the rule.

"CBSE has decided to go tough against such errant schools," added the source.

C.B. Singh, the secretary of CBSE Patliputra Sahodaya, a group of CBSE schools in Bihar, said: "For the first time, CBSE has sent the letter to the regional offices regarding the disqualification of schools which didn't opt for affiliation. CBSE is now more conscious and I would urge all the school principals to adhere to the rule in true spirit."

"The schools should not jeopardise the career of their students by playing truant on this front. Last year, some schools, including Doon Public School and DAV Khagaul, failed to renew their affiliation but applied afresh this year," added Singh.

Admitting the fact, DAV Khagaul principal D.K. Ghosh said: "We have applied for the CBSE affiliation afresh and hope that board would give us affiliation sooner than later."

Ghosh maintained that the school would ensure that the students' careers were not affected owing to legal wrangle.