Mita Mukherjee

The Calcutta High Court on Friday passed an order allowing schools to remove names of students from the school’s roll and suspend online and offline teaching if their parents do not clear a minimum of 50 percent of outstanding fees within three weeks.

In its order, a division bench comprising I P Mukherjee and Moushumi Bhattacharya today said, “Within three weeks from date at least 50 percent of the claimed amount should be paid, irrespective of any dispute with regard to the claim of the school. If the dues are not cleared within the deadline, schools will be permitted to “remove the name of the students from the roll of the school without further notice.”

Schools can also “suspend the instruction to the students in all forms, online and physical.”

In the case of classes X and XII board examinees, the schools can withhold the pass certificates till the fees are paid.

“For those students who have taken the school final or higher secondary examination and qualified, a direction is to be made to the respective boards to suspend their qualification and certificates till the school fees are paid,” according to the order.

Calcutta High Court had earlier said that no school should remove any student from the rolls for non-payment of fees or short payment of fees.

In October 2020, the court had ordered that schools could charge 80 percent of the fees because of the pandemic.

The court today said that they were “sad and annoyed to know that although the economic situation is much better now than in 2020 and that most people have learnt to adjust their lives to the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, quite a significant number of parents and guardians have taken advantage of this order by not paying the fees at all.”

A substantial number of parents had the ability to pay the fees but were deliberately not paying the dues, the court said.

The institutions were finding it very hard to pay the salaries to teachers and non-teaching staff and maintaining their infrastructure.

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