SC moved against high court ruling that set 5pc hike limit

Private school’s management contends that SHC
 judgement was based on a law that was repealed in 2013

The management of a private school on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against the October 2016 ruling of the Sindh High Court in which it had deemed that schools “shall only increase tuition fees by no more than five percent per annum”. 

The SHC judgement also stipulated that the five percent increase would only be allowed if the school renewed its registration after the mandatory three-year period. 

In its petition to the SC, the school administration submitted that the high court had erred in its judgment by relying on the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (Regulation and Control) Ordinance, a law that had been repealed in the year 2013.

The petitioner’s counsels, Kamal Azfar and Farogh Naseem, challenged the vires of the legislation under which schools are barred from escalating their fee by more than five percent within an academic year.

They submitted that Sub-Rule 3 of Rule 7 of the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (Regulation and Control) Rules 2002 was discriminatory as no such prices have been fixed for other social sectors including health and entertainment. Therefore, the counsels’ contended, the law was liable to be set aside.

The two-member SC bench which was headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar granted the leave to appeal and fixed the matter for hearing in April, along with related petitions. In October last year, parents of students studying in the institute had won a legal battle against the school management’s act of increasing tuition fees by up to 14 percent.

The SHC division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan, had observed that private schools which had increased their tuition fees by over five percent per annum for the last three years from the date of their registration or re-registration would be not permitted to increase the fees until their fresh registration, whereupon fee enhancement would be regulated in strict compliance with Sub-Rule (7) (3) of the Rule 2002.

The court made clear that in case there had been no registration after the mandatory three-year period, fees could not be increased unless the school re-registers itself. 

The judgment came on petitions by some 400 parents who had challenged the increase in tuition fees by the private school in violation of the Sindh Private Education Institution (Regulation and Control) Ordinance and its rules. They submitted that their children were studying in the private school situated in North Nazimabad in primary and secondary sections and the school administration in violation of the Sindh Private Institution Ordinance 2001 had increased the tuition fees by 14 percent.

Pir Mazhar case

A two-member SC bench headed by CJP Nisar dismissed appeals filed by two men convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the kidnapping case of PPP leader Pir Mazharul Haq.

Manzoor and Balio Bheel were sentenced to life in jail by an anti terrorism court in Jamshoro for kidnapping Haq, his wife, guard and driver on June 12, 1997 from the Super Highway while they were heading to Hyderabad from Karachi.

This was their second appeal against the ATC sentence, as the SHC had dismissed a similar plea on November 14, 2016.