The Madras high court has permitted private schools and colleges to collect 75 percent fees for next academic year. It stated that 40 per cent of the annual fee can be collected before August 31 as advance.

The institutions have also been permitted to collect last year’s arrears, if any, by September 30. The court clarified that if any student has already paid the entire fees including arrears, the same shall not be a ground to claim refund.

The state had earlier provisionally fixed the new academic year’s fees as 75 per cent of last year’s. Justice N Anand Venkatesh, on Friday, said the 35 per cent of the annual fees shall be collected within two months from the date of reopening and commencement of physical classes.

The Madras high court judge was passing interim orders on a batch of over 30 PIL petitions from private educational institutions challenging the Tamil Nadu government’s order dated April 20 that prevented them from collecting the complete fees while at the same time, directing them to pay the salaries to their staff. The court said that the order is being passed taking the present situation into consideration and to find an interim solution in the best interest of all the stakeholders. The judge said that the teaching and non-teaching staff shall not insist for any increment in salary and/or DA, until the restoration of normalcy and further orders of this court.

The court noted that unaided institutions must start functioning immediately and for that to happen, they require some flow of funds. The fee committee, constituted by the government, shall complete the process of determining the tuition fees for the respective institutions within eight months from August 2020. The payment of balance if any, shall be determined after the final decision of the committee, the judge said.

The state shall get the particulars from the respective institutions about the students who are in dire straits for the supply of textbooks and notebooks to students either free of cost or at a nominal rate. The court said that no students should be deprived of education due to their inability to purchase textbooks and notebooks and hoped that the government will come up with a positive response in this regard.

The matter has been posted for the next hearing on October 5.

Read: Supreme Court refuses to hear parents’ plea for school fees waiver