BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to ask the District Level Education Regulating Authorities headed by the Deputy Commissioner of the concerned district to dispose of complaints received in writing or oral or initiated suo motu, on violation of fee structure by private unaided schools, within a specific period.
The division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Pradeep Singh Yerur issued this direction in relation to a display of fee structures by the schools after hearing public interest litigation filed by city-based advocate N P Amrutesh.
Before the issue of this direction, the government advocate submitted that a notification dated July 24, 2019, was issued making the private unaided schools mandatorily upload the details of nature of fees to be collected by them, details of teachers, etc, on the website of the Department of Primary and Secondary Education by December 31 of every year.
In reply, the petitioner contended that the notification did not mention the collection of fees for the application, and the brochure should also be uploaded on the website, saying that the said schools collected exorbitant fees.
The court pointed out that there is a ceiling for fees to be charged for application and brochure, as per Karnataka Educational Institutions (Classification, Regulation and Prescription of Curricula) Rules and said that the notification can be modified to ask the schools to upload the fees to be collected for application and brochure.