– Autar Nehru (Delhi)

The long-awaited delhi school Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Act, 2025 — enacted on August 14, 2025, and operationalised on December 10 through notification of its Rules — driven by middle class demand to curb arbitrary fee hikes by private schools, has immediately run into legal headwinds. On February 28, the Delhi high court, hearing a batch of petitions filed by several school associations challenging the Act, deferred the implementation of a Delhi state government notification directing all private schools to constitute School Level Fee Regulation Committees (SLFRCs) for the academic session 2026-27.

Under the Act, private school managements are required to propose fees chargeable for three years at a time. The proposal has to be approved or amended by SLFRCs to be constituted under s.4 (1) of the Act in every private school before the start of the academic year. Under a broad-based participatory model, SLFRCs will comprise a school management representative as chairperson, school principal (secretary), three teachers (selected by draw of lots), five parents (including two women, selected by draw of lots), one SC/EBC community representative and one representative from the state government’s Directorate of Education (DoE) as observer. After formation of SLFRCs, the 13-member committee is obliged to approve (or amend) the fee proposed by the management before August 31 every year.

Several private school associations — including the Public Schools on Private Land Society; Association of Public Schools; Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools; Forum for Promotion of Quality Education for All; Delhi Public School Society; Rohini Educational Society; Ryan International School and others — were petitioners challenging the Act. Their petitions, now clubbed by the court, contend that the Act and Rules violate the administrative and financial autonomy of private unaided schools, and that the law establishes an “invasive and bureaucratic mechanism,” including the mandatory SLFRC, and grants excessive discretionary power to DoE. Also that the Act “infringes on constitutional rights,” including equality before law (Article 14) and the freedoms to form associations and practice any profession (Articles 19 (1) (c) and 19 (1) (g)).

Hearing the batch of petitions, Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia of the Delhi high court stayed the notification on February 28, allowing the petitioners to collect the same fees of the academic year 2025-26 until the new fee is fixed/approved in terms of the provisions of the Act and Rules, subject to outcome of the petitions. “We are of the opinion that challenge to the Act and the Rules requires careful consideration during the final hearing of these Petitions commencing on 12.03.2026,” opined the court.

Even as the Delhi state government driven by the impulse to placate the powerful middle class which shuns free-of-charge government schools but invites government control of private school fees, is going all out to implement the new Act, informed legal opinion is that the issue of fees regulation of private unaided education institutions was settled two decades ago by the Supreme Court in the landmark T.M.A. Pai Foundation Case (2002), which upheld the right of private education institutions to “establish and administer educational institutions of their choice”.

Comments Bengaluru-based advocate Divya Balagopal, who has established an excellent reputation in the education laws domain: “In my view all such school fees fixation Acts are regulatory overreach and don’t conform with principles laid down by the Supreme Court in its well-considered judgement in the T.M.A. Pai Case. In that judgement the apex court directed that fees should be ‘reasonable’ and reasonableness is context driven. In my opinion as long as fees levied are reasonable and commensurate with the quality of education provided, government cannot directly or indirectly regulate the fees of private unaided education institutions. All such legislation is likely to be struck down by the judiciary,” says Balagopal.

Quite obviously the Delhi School Education (Transparency in Fixation and Regulation of Fees) Act, 2025 with its elaborate private school fees mechanisms was enacted to placate Delhi’s influential middle class. But its future is uncertain.