Bhubaneswar, March 13: The Supreme Court in its interim order has asked DAV schools in the state not to adopt coercive measures for collection of fees at enhanced rates, until further orders.
The court asked the state government to submit the report of the fee-regulating interim committee by April 1.
“We clarify that until further orders, no coercive steps, including the withholding of declaration of result shall be taken… to recover the school dues... It will be open to the state of Odisha to file an affidavit along with the report of the interim committee on or before April 1,” the apex court pronounced on Tuesday and fixed April 2 as the date for subsequent hearing.
This has come as a relief to several parents agitating against the “arbitrary” fee hike for a long time.
“We are happy that the court has taken note of our concerns and asked the schools not to collect hiked fees until the case is disposed of. It was anyway illegal since the matter is sub-judice,” said Bhikari Mohanty, secretary of all Odisha DAV Parents’ Coordination Committee.
On the other hand, principal of DAV-Chandrasekharpur K.C. Satpathy said: “I must clarify that the court has not said that we should not increase the fee but asked us not to force any student to clear dues which we are not doing in any case. In fact, many parents have willingly paid increased fees. And we have not debarred any child from school activity or exam process.”
Fee hike has been a controversial issue since the DAVs enhanced tuition fees from 2009-10 on the plea of implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission for teaching and non-teaching staff. DAV runs nearly 40 schools in the state, including four each in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.
In September 2011, Orissa High Court had ruled against the hike, endorsing an earlier ruling that said the “Orissa Education Act is applicable to the DAV schools, which are affiliated to the CBSE”.
It had also approved the previous order striking down fee hike on the ground that it was made by local managing committees constituted “contrary to law”.
The school management then moved the Supreme Court, which, in May last, asked for the financial records of the schools apart from instructing that an interim committee be constituted by the state government to determine the fee structure. On November 23, 2012, the committee headed by special secretary, school and mass education department I.C. Barda ordered a three-fold hike ranging between Rs 900 and Rs 1,200 in fee with retrospective effect from June 2012.
This decision met with state-wide protests by DAV parents associations who termed it “arbitrary” and “illegal”. Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena, a member of the interim committee, had written to the state government alleging that Barda, who retired within seven days of issuing the order, had acted arbitrarily in violation of the court order.
Most parents refrained from paying the hiked fees and staged protests. Things took a turn for the worse when a group of parents allegedly ransacked a DAV school in Cuttack and verbally and physically assaulted principal Ipsita Das.
Following this, DAV teachers in the twin cities started boycotting classes for five days. They called off their agitation following an assurance from governor M.C. Bhandare that appropriate steps would be taken with regards to their demands for legal action against the attackers and safety on schools campuses.
Parents alleged that the school authorities were “blackmailing” their wards that they would not be allowed to take the final exams unless they cleared their dues. This prompted minister of school and mass education Rabi Narayan Nanda to instruct schools not to debar any student from the exam process since the fee hike issue was sub-judice.
