VIJAYAWADA: The High Court of Andhra Pradesh on Monday struck down two government orders issued to finalise the fees in private school and colleges.
Dismissing government orders (GOs) 53 and 54 issued on August 24, the court observed that fixing fees based on the geographical location of the educational institution was illogical.
The court felt that the AP School Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission should have recommended the fees considering the infrastructure facilities and other issues, along with the geographical location.
Directing the Commission to go through geographical location, infrastructure facilities, and categorise private schools and colleges, the court also asked to consider the views of the managements before recommending the fee structure for 2021-22, 2022 - 23 and 2023-24 academic years. The commission was asked to complete the process by March 31, 2022.
The managements would have to reimburse any additional fee collected from the students for the academic year 2021- 22. In the case of a amount collected was lesser than what the government would finalise, the managements could collect the balance amount.
After hearing separate petitions filed by East Godavari Private Schools’ Association, AP Private Unaided Schools Managements’ Association challenging the GOs 53 and 54 recently, Justice U Durga Prasad Rao delivered the verdict on Monday.
The Justice observed that it was illogical to fix the same fee for a school with international standards and another school without basic infrastructure on the basis of both the schools located in the same panchayat.