Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar:

Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama today said that the Gujarat government would file a caveat in the apex court at the earliest in connection with the recent Gujarat High Court order which held valid the Gujarat Self Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, 2017.

Notably, a Caveat is a Notice given by a person, informing the Court that another person may file a suit or application against him and that the Court must give the Caveator (person filing the Caveat) a fair hearing before deciding any matter brought before it in the relevant case. The caveat petition is a precautionary measure which is undertaken by people or institution usually when they are having a very strong apprehension that some case is going to be filed in the Court regarding their interest in any manner.In case of the fee regulation act the Gujarat government apprehends that the school operators or somebody else might go to the apex court against the High court order of December 27.

Chudasama said that he had talked to the additional advocate general Tushar Mehta in this regard and the principal secretary of his department Sunayana Tomar was also in constant touch with him. The government would file a caveat as soon as possible. May be on January 3 or 4, soon after the new year vacation of the court.

He said that the Act would be implemented from session 2017-18 only and the schools which had taken excess fees would have to either refund it or adjust it in the next fees. He said that the act would be implemented strictly and the guardians must show patience as the government was sitting quiet about it was taking all out efforts.

Chudasama who had convened a meeting of District Education officers today, also said that the government would ensure that injustice was not done to any schools also but they would not be allowed to take excess fees in arbitrary manner.

The division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi of Gujarat High Court had upheld the Gujarat Self Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, 2017 on December 27 rejecting the contention of the CBSE and minority schools which had said that the state government cannot regulate them. The Act came into force in April this year after Governor O P Kohli gave his assent to the said Bill, which was passed by the assembly in March this year, on April 12. The fee structure prescribed in the Act for primary, secondary and higher secondary school is Rs 15,000, Rs 25,000 and Rs 27,000 per year, respectively. As per the rules of the Bill, all private schools, which want to charge fees more than what has been prescribed, need to submit their proposal with the fee regulatory committee before imposing any hike. The Act provides for establishment of four such committees in four zones, having their headquarters at Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot. The managements of various private, minority, CBSE and ICSE schools had approached the court against the law, saying it was not in accordance with the Constitution and should be scrapped.

DeshGujarat