Patna, Jan. 4: Patna High Court today asked the Centre to furnish the steps it intends to take to regulate the fee structure of schools affiliated to the Indian Council of Secondary Education (ICSE).

Directing the Centre to furnish its report within three months, a division bench of Justice Shiva Kirti Singh and Justice Ravi Ranjan passed the direction on a public interest litigation filed by advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha, seeking direction to the ICSE and other boards to quash the hike in the fee structure.

The petitioner’s counsel, Vijay Kumar Singh, submitted that ICSE and other boards have unilaterally and arbitrarily hiked the fee structures putting the low and medium income group at the peril of education mafia.

On the one hand, elementary education has been made fundamental right and on the other, a hike in fee between 200 per cent and 1000 per cent would almost force the common people to pull their children out of school, depriving them of quality education, Singh said.

“Middle-class people are facing difficulty to pay fee for educating their children. Parents of students studying in ICSE-affiliated schools are being compelled to discontinue their studies,” the counsel submitted.

The ICSE implemented the revised fee structure with effect from May 2008 citing against a slew of heads (refer to chart), Ojha submitted in his petition.

Ojha said around 33 schools and 150 schools are affiliated to the ICSE and CBSE boards respectively in Bihar.

The Centre, which has been impleaded as party to the case, apprised the court of the fee structure of all boards in the country.

The petitioner contended that the Centre must intervene in the matter so that it could develop a mechanism to regulate the fee structure of the ICSE and CBSE boards.