HYDERABAD: In a significant development, the Telangana government on Thursday filed a report before the High Court stating that 11 private schools - Mount Litera Zee School, Rangareddy district, Meridian at Banjara Hills, Oxford at Himayathnagar, Neeraj, Narayana (DD Colony branch), Jubilee Hills, Geetanjali, Little Flower, Kalpa and St Andrews schools (Bowenpally and Marredpally branches) in the city - have violated GO 46, which allows schools to collect only tuition fee on monthly basis during 2020-21.
The government also stated that it will initiate action against such schools affiliated to the State board as per provisions of the Education Act, 1982. Pursuant to an earlier direction of the court, the government, represented by Director of School Education A Sridevasena, filed a report before the division bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy.
The bench is dealing with the PIL filed by Hyderabad School Parents Association, represented by its Joint Secretary K Venkat Sainath, seeking direction to the authorities concerned to take action against the private schools managements for conducting online classes and for collecting fee, including term fee, admission fee, developmental charges, library fee, extra curricular activity and transportation fee in violation of GO 46 issued on April 21, 2020.
The government, in its report, stated that the enquiry officers concerned conducted detailed enquiry in the above mentioned schools and found that these schools have violated the GO 46.
Basing on the findings of the enquiry teams, action such as withdrawal of recognition and so on will be initiated by the competent authority against these erring schools affiliated to the State board in terms of provisions of the Education Act, 1982.
As for the schools affiliated to CBSE and ICSE boards, action such as written warning, imposing fine up to Rs 5 lakh and suspension of affiliation will be taken as per the byelaws of respective boards. The State is fully committed to strict compliance of GO 46. When the CBSE counsel sought some time for filing counter affidavit on the issue, the bench posted the matter to November 25 for further hearing.