The ruling aam aadmi party (AAP) piloted two education bills — the Delhi School (Verification of Accounts and Refund of Excess Fee) Bill 2015 and Delhi School Education Act and Rules 1973 (Amendment) Bill 2015 — through the Delhi state legislative assembly on December 3. Introduced by deputy chief and education minister Manish Sisodia as “revolutionary”, the proposed bills (now awaiting approval of the President who is advised by the Central government) invest the AAP government (which was voted to power with an overwhelming majority in the assembly election of February 2015) with the power to determine fees, teacher pay scales and admission processes of 1,800 private unaided schools in Delhi NCR (national capital region), excluding Gurgaon and Noida. Under the Delhi School (Verification of Accounts and Refund of Excess Fee) Bill 2015, the state government will have the power to appoint a five-member committee — comprising a chartered accountant, retired civil engineer, an eminent educationist and additional-director of education, and headed by a retired high or district court judge — to inspect the accounts of all private unaided (financially independent) schools, direct refund of “excess fees” levied, adjudicate complaints and/or take suo motu action regarding violations of the provisions of Delhi School Education Act, 1973. The committee is also empowered to address complaints made by parents of at least 20 students or one-fifth of the total strength of a school whichever is less, with regard to utilisation of fees/funds. Violators could get a jail term of upto seven years or a fine of upto Rs.5 lakh or both. The amendment to the 43-year-old Delhi School Education Act, 1973 (DSE Act) bans all capitation fees or forced donations and prescribes admissions by lottery in all including entry level classes (s. 16A). Under s. (10) (1) (a) it also abolishes teacher pay parity between private and government schools prescribed by the DSE Act since “many budget schools which charge very low fees cannot pay their teachers at (sic) par with the government pay commissions”. “The salary and allowances payable to, and the terms and conditions of service of employees of recognised private schools shall be such as may be prescribed by the government,” says Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. Unsurprisingly, the bills have enraged private school promoters, principals and teachers (denied pay parity with overpaid government school teachers). According to them, the two bills fly in the face of the Supreme Court’s full-bench judgement in T.M.A. Pai Foundation vs. Union of India (2002) in which the court upheld the fundamental right of all citizens to promote education institutions under Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution and earn reasonable profit. “It looks like the authorities concerned do not understand the way a school operates nor have they studied the rules laid down by the apex court of the country in related matters. The poor condition of government-managed schools is not a secret and now, just to serve its political agenda of appeasing subsidy-seeking parents, the AAP government wants to inflict the…
