Private schools case: SC directs panel to determine fee

ISLAMABAD: Hearing a case concerning the charging of high fees by private educational institutions, the Supreme Court Tuesday directed a committee to regularise the fee structure.

The committee, comprising the federal ombudsman and former attorney general for Pakistan Makhdoom Ali Khan, was constituted to resolve the issue of exorbitant fee charged by private schools,

Expressing dissatisfaction with progress in the case, the chief justice said he would head the committee himself. Justice Nisar said he will decide all the cases he’d been dealing with before retirement.

The law secretary informed the bench that private schools wanted to increase fee by 8 to 10 percent without any restriction. Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan observed that a forensic audit will have to be conducted to know how much income was being made by the private schools.

The law secretary told the court that the stakeholders had agreed on eight percent hike. The court directed the committee to determine how often and how much the fee was to be increased. The chief justice further remarked that the federal ombudsman and auditor general would need to be summoned before the court.