Private schools can increase fee by 5pc: SC

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) ruled on Wednesday that the annual increase in the tuition fee of private schools will be five percent after upholding the order earlier passed by the learned Sindh High Court (SHC).

Last month on May 9, a three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and comprising Justice Faisal Arab and Justice Ijazul Ahsen reserved the judgment in appeals filed by the managements of private schools against the judgments passed by the Sindh High Court (SHC) and Lahore High Court (LHC).

On Wednesday, a two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice Ijazul Ahsen and Justice Faisal Arab announced the reserved verdict. The 15-page majority verdict was authored by Justice Ijazul Ahsen with dissenting note of Justice Faisal Arab.

The court withdrew its earlier order, passed last year by former CJP Mian Saqib Nisar, ordering the private schools to reduce their tuition fees by 20 percent “The arbitrarily determined cap of 5 percent imposed under Rule 7 (3) and the manner by which it is to be enforced is an unreasonable restriction on carrying on a lawful business”, the court ruled adding that increase upto 8 percent in an academic year without recourse to Registering Authority would be closer to the ground realities and at the same time save the department and the schools much of the inconvenience in the periodical revision of tuition fees.

The court directed the government of Sindh to amend Rule 7(3) accordingly within a period of two months and disposed of the civil appeals along with all pending Review Petitions/CMAs. The court unanimously held and declared that Rule 10 of the Rules of 2005 is intra vires the statute, i.e. Sindh Private Education Institutions (Regulation and Control) Ordinance, 2001, and the Constitution.

“With a majority of two against one, we are not persuaded to interfere with Rule 7(3) of the Rules of 2005, with Faisal Arab, J. expressing the view that the restriction imposed by Rule 7(3) ibid is unreasonable and hence invalid”, the court held.

The court ruled that upon decision of the main appeals, all interim orders passed during the pendency of the appeals (including the order dated 13.12.2018 passed in Civil Appeal No 1095/2018 regarding reduction of fees by 20 percent as an interim measure) have ceased to be effective, subject to recalculation of fee by using the fee prevailing in 2017 as the base fee, in accordance with the provision(s) of the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) (Amendment) Act, 2017 and onwards, for the Province of Punjab.

For the Province of Sindh, the court ruled that fees may be recalculated using the fee prevailing on 29.06.2017 as the base fee and onwards, in accordance with the Rules of 2005 (gazetted on 29.06.2017). Provided that the schools shall not recover any arrears on account of the reduction in fee by reason of the interim order of this court dated 13.12.2018 till the date of this judgment.

“Therefore, all the review petitions filed against the said interim order are disposed of in these terms”, says the verdict with the ruling that in view of the fact that these appeals/petitions are being finally decided, all criminal original petitions and civil miscellaneous applications are disposed of.

The court further directed that all schools shall collect the fee, strictly in accordance with the procedure and timeframe provided by the law, the rules and regulations including, but not limited to the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) Ordinance, 1984, as amended by the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) (Amendment) Act, 2017 and the Rules of 2005.